


rusty crowns

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: the castle [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Pansy Parkinson, Character Study, F/F, Hogwarts, Multi, Pen Pals, Prequel, Pureblood Society, Queer Themes, Wizarding History, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Sometimes you have to make your own inheritance. It takes Pansy a long time to figure that one out.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass/Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson
Series: the castle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892611
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [Colubrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/pseuds/Colubrina). Log in to view. 



> This is a prequel of sorts to forgotten flags, and based on Pansy because I had a few people over there comment how much they wanted to see a story about her. It was supposed to be short, it ran away with me; and this is only the beginning of my plans for Pansy. It's been inspired by lots of different things - please see my end-notes for a breakdown :) In other notes - if anyone speaks Mandarin or Spanish, please feel free to correct me as my knowledge is strongly based on Google Translate. Finally: thanks to my brother for the beta read and the headcanoning walks. You are the best!
> 
> T/W: Underage because they're at school; neglectful & abusive parenting; mentions of arranged marriage; torture; mentions of other violence; offscreen homophobia; anti-Muggleborn sentiment / hate speech.

> _There were many things a young woman could do with rage_ – **Azadeh Moaveni**

**May 1998 / 18 years old**

Pansy doesn’t really understand what’s happening until the Aurors show up. She’d peeled Draco from beside his mother’s body, blank-faced and wide eyed and shaking, and tugged him back towards the others; Blaise, tall, jittery and dark flanked by the golden-haired Greengrass sisters on the small bit of the Slytherin table left intact. The other two thirds are a mangled, molten mess. Pansy didn’t even know wood could look like that, but they’ve just lived through their world smashing to pieces around their feet. Nothing should be unexpected, not anymore.

Millie is hovering tearily at a slight remove. Pansy shoulders past her, sits down and tugs at Draco’s sleeve until he does the same. His eyes are fixed on a point somewhere over Blaise’s left shoulder. He keeps rubbing at his wrist. The hall echoes with shouts and screams – people finding loved ones, alive or dead, people drunk on adrenaline and the giddiness of their own survival. Pansy can’t see Theo or Greg or Vincent or Rosaline anywhere, wonders if they’re dead. Draco’s fingers are cold and clammy in hers; the engagement bracelet sparkles green and cream on her wrist in the golden light of the sconces. Somewhere behind her, someone begins to wail.

After a moment, Millie comes to join them and Pansy glares at her as if she has any right to be there after embracing the Carrows and their cruelties in the way that she did. She doesn’t care what Millie’s excuses are, never has. Not giving in was entirely possible.

“What in Merlin’s name-” she begins but Blaise stops her before she can say any more.

“Give it a fucking rest,” he says, and she turns her glare on him.

“She’s one of _them._ ”

“She’s one of _us,_ Parkinson. And anyway, it’s not like anyone knows the difference. Sit down, Millie.”

Pansy makes a low noise in the back of her throat. Millie shoots her a look and shuffles along the bench so there’s a good foot between them. Blaise rolls his eyes, but doesn’t keep pressing the issue. Perhaps he’s seen the cut of Pansy’s teeth, the feral, tight feeling in her chest spilling out through her eyes. She doesn’t know and she doesn’t care. She huddles closer to Draco and holds his hand tighter as though she can make it all disappear through sheer willpower, as though she can conjure the world back to how it was before sociopaths started getting hellbent on destruction. It’s no use, she knows. Magic doesn’t work like that.

People have begun the clear up, and there is food on some of the tables now, but everyone is giving their little huddle a wide berth. They don’t offer to help. No-one asks them to. A group of people wave their wands and the remains of the Slytherin table dissolve into fine brown powder, and then into nothing.

Eventually Theo comes to rejoin them, slight and brown-haired and ashen, all dark circles behind gold wire-framed glasses. He folds down next to Daphne; she puts her head on his shoulder in a show of affection. Pansy wants to snarl at him too, to make him leave; she _saw_ him cursing DA members before the tide turned, she _knows_ where his loyalties lie and it isn’t to them. There’s a reason she insisted on leaving him out of their scheming.

“Where were you?” Daphne is asking. She sounds even more fragile than usual. Her voices grates up Pansy’s spine and Pansy can’t believe she ever in a single instant found Daphne Greengrass attractive.

“Just arranging for the transport of my father’s body to-” Theo starts, but then his eyes catch on something behind Pansy. “Oh shit.”

Pansy twists to see two red-robed Aurors picking their way deliberately through the debris, heading in their direction. Her stomach tightens, her chest swells. She squeezes Draco’s fingers even harder – he doesn’t even flinch at it.

“Mr Draco Malfoy,” the one with a raging tide of freckles says. Draco doesn’t respond, and the other author – a curly haired, brown-skinned woman in her mid-thirties – glances to Pansy.

“Draco Malfoy?” Freckles says again, and Curly Hair interrupts.

“This is him, right?”

“Yes,” Astoria says from across the table. Then, “What, Blaise? There’s no point denying it.”

“You’re under arrest on charges of Death Eater activity,” Freckles says. Draco still hasn’t moved. Pansy wants to be sick. “Hand over your wand and come quietly. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“Where are you taking him?” she blurts out.

Curly Hair looks at Pansy down her nose. “The Ministry. He’ll be detained until trial.”

“Mr Malfoy? Can you hear me?” Freckles tries and Draco sighs, long and slow, the first thing he’s done since Pansy had found him bent double over Narcissa Malfoy’s stone-cold body, his head pressed to her ribs. He pulls his wand from his sleeve and passes it to them without comment.

“Good choice,” Freckles says.

“Thank God for Slytherin self-preservation,” Curly Hair mutters. Draco stands, steps over the bench. His grey eyes are still somewhere else entirely.

“Is anyone else getting arrested?” Theo asks like he has any right to pretend to innocence.

“Not unless any of you are Lucius Malfoy, Thaddeus Avery, or Grant Mulciber,” Curly Hair says. “Miss, you’re going to have to let go.”

Pansy looks down at the death grip she has on Draco’s hand, her knuckles white, the bracelet shining. She swallows, hard. She can’t let go. She promised.

“It’s ok,” Draco says suddenly, his voice rasping. His eyes find hers. “It’s ok, Pansy. Let go.”

“It’s not,” she says, but uncurls each cramping finger one by one until her hand is empty and Draco is being cuffed none-too-gently, led back across the hall. He keeps his head high. He doesn’t look back. Pansy stares at her empty hands and tries to breathe but it feels like all of the air has left the hall. The others are still sitting there like they’re waiting for an adult to show up, to tell them what to do. No-one has realised that when you’re the losers in a long and dirty war, no-one will. They’re on their own.

*

She leaves soon after, pitches her chin at an arrogant angle, squares her shoulders and walks alone through the hall, past the tables of hostile eyes and sudden silences. Potter is holding court at the end of the Gryffindor table and she stops, stares at the back of his head until Neville Longbottom nudges him. Weasley looks up from where he’d been whispering something into Granger’s ear, his arm around her waist.

“Congratulations on your victory,” she says to Potter because she cannot, for the life of her, think of anything else.

“No thanks to _you,_ ” Weasley mutters under his breath, and Pansy feels the heat flame to her cheeks. If only the fucking git _knew…_

She turns on her heel and walks away before Potter can respond or before she says something she regrets. Behind her, there is the screech of a bench being shoved back. She keeps walking, is nearly at the door when someone hesitantly touches her elbow and she spins round, a snarl hot in her mouth, to find Neville Longbottom looming over her.

“Why are you following me?” she spits.

“I…” he pauses, and then straightens his shoulders. “I can tell them. About what you all did.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity,” he insists, his face open and earnest and everything she used to mock. “Just fair play. You helped.”

“We did not help,” Pansy says. “We didn’t. Whatever damn crusade you’re on, Longbottom, forget it. We don’t need saving; we don’t need your friends’ goodwill. We never had it and I don’t want it now. What happened last year stays there. Got it?”

The corner of his mouth twists down. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Well it isn’t your decision to make,” she snaps. Then, out of nowhere before she can think better of it, “I’m pleased he’s dead.”

“Yeah,” Longbottom had said, turning away. “Me too.”

*

Blaise finds her later down in one of the dungeons pacing back and forth with one hand in her hair and the other twisting her crane necklace taut between her fingers. She nearly runs into him and he catches her wrists before she can slip and fall. She hisses at him between her teeth.

“Charming,” he says.

“Do _not_ ask me if I’m alright.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

She eyes him. “Glad you have some sense of self-preservation.”

“I’m just as Slytherin as you, Parkinson.”

They fall into silence. He doesn’t let go of her wrists. His face is bleak in the shifting shadows.

“I hope Draco’s alright,” he says eventually.

“How exactly is he going to be _alright_? He’s just lost his mother. They cuffed him like a fucking Muggle and took him away. Where exactly is ‘alright’ in that chain of events?”

“It’s not,” Blaise sighs. “Sorry. Stupid thing to say. I’m sorry, I’m just…” he makes a limp shrug, “I can’t keep my thoughts still, I can’t…it’s just too much. I just thought after everything we’ve done, after everything he’s been through, they might have…”

“They don’t _care_ what he’s been through. He’s Death Eater scum who’s going to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban,” Pansy snaps, not even trying to disguise the way her voice _shakes._

“It’s not _fair._ ”

“The world’s not fair, Zabini. We only thought it was because we ruled it.”

She pulls her wrists away and begins to pace again, back and forth, her shiny shoes sloshing in the murk.

“Why did you try and give Potter up?” Blaise asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Pansy says roughly. “It’s not like I like him. His life for hundreds. Not exactly advanced charms, is it?”

“The Dark Lord would have _won_.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’d be ok with that? After all we did?”

Pansy turns to look at him then. “I wanted it to be over,” she says. “Not won, not lost. Just over. All I wanted was for it to be over.” Her voice trembles, shakes, cracks open. Blaise unfolds his arms.

“Come here,” he murmurs, and Pansy does. She steps into his arms and rests her head against his shoulder and starts to cry.

**October 1983 / 3 years old**

“Daddy!” Pansy pulls her hand free of Nanny’s and jumps down the steps towards the approaching figure of her father. She trips on the last one but doesn’t hit the ground; he’s scooped her up into his arms, flung her into the air. She shrieks with laughter. He’s been gone for a long time and she’s missed him but it doesn’t matter now because he’s home, smelling of smoke and expensive cologne.

“Here’s my favourite girl!” he says, catching her. She wraps her arms around his neck and sloppily kisses his cheek. “Have you missed me?”

She nods, furiously.

“Have you been good for Mummy and Nanny?”

“Ye-es,” she says. She barely sees her mother at the best of times, but Nanny is smiling from the top step, holding the front door of the townhouse open for them.

“She’s been an angel, as always,” she says as they pass. “Welcome home, Mr Parkinson.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” her father says. “But have you been good enough for a present?”

“Present?” Pansy claps her hands together. “Present!”

“What do you say?”

Pansy considers, tilts her head to one side. “Please?”

“Good girl,” her father shifts her onto his hip to dig around in the pocket of his robes, and comes out with a tiny stuffed unicorn that, with a murmured word, grows to the size of Pansy’s head. “Here you are. All the way from Canada. Their unicorns are pale blue, you know, not like ours. What’ll you call it?”

Pansy pulls the unicorn into a big hug and kisses her father again. “Blue.”

“A wonderful name,” he says, and presses his lips to her forehead. “Welcome to the family, Blue.”

**April 1991 / 11 years old**

“I just had a thought.”

“A Malfoy with a thought? Merlin give me strength.”

“Can it, Parkinson.”

They’re lying on their backs in the grass after a hunt party, well disguised in their tweed jackets from where their respective parents are still drinking champagne and laughing over the tumble Gaius Selwyn had taken from his horse. Pansy had been too far away through the trees to see it, urging her pony after the others, but he’d been sitting grouchily with the healer when they’d returned from the hunt and left as soon as it was polite.

“Harry Potter’s going to be in our year,” Draco says, tipping his face towards her in the grass.

“Yes,” she hums. “He is, isn’t he?”

It hadn’t occurred to her before, not really. Her earliest memory is of biting Draco because he’d stolen her pain au chocolat, and then being pulled off him to the sound of clattering cutlery, gasps, silk-taut silence. When she’d been old enough to remember said earliest memory, she’d asked Gwithian, the head house elf, about it. Gwithian had hummed, had told her it was the day the Dark Lord had been defeated by a boy two months younger than Draco, that the Killing Curse had rebounded for the first time in history, that she shouldn’t ask her parents about it because Her Ladyship doesn’t like to be reminded of the war.

“I wonder what he’ll be like.”

“Maybe he has a big red mane,” Pansy says and Draco shoots her an incredulous look. She grins at him, all teeth: “Or a scorpion’s tail.”

“Harry Potter isn’t a _manticore,_ ” Draco says, affronted.

Pansy starts to giggle. “It might explain a lot if he was. Deadly. Very difficult to kill.”

“It’s not a _joke._ ”

“Merlin, why are you so uptight about this?” she rolls over onto her stomach, shoots him a look. Draco turns pink.

“I’m not. I’m just curious.” He pauses and then says, offhand, “my first stuffed dragon was named Harry Potter.”

Pansy’s giggle evolves into a cackle worthy of any hag worth their salt. “ _No_! No _way_!”

Pansy’s father looks over from the adults and she abruptly quietens, rolls back onto her back. She shouldn’t have let herself get so out of control with everyone in earshot, knows she’s going to hear about it from Narcissa Malfoy on Monday, but it’s maybe worth it for the colour Draco has turned.

“Eres un idiota,” she adds for good measure, just like her Uncle Juan taught her. Draco scowls.

“I was _three._ ”

“What did your parents say?”

“Mother told me I should probably not tell Father,” he says. Then, too airily, “I don’t remember what happened to it. I probably threw it down the toilet.”

It dawns on Pansy very, very quickly. “You want to be _friends_ with him, don’t you?”

“So what if I do? I bet he’s cool. He’s the Saviour of the Wizarding World. And anyway, it’s good to cultivate alliances where you might need them.” Pansy has never heard Lucius Malfoy so strongly in Draco’s voice, slants him a look, and he shrugs. “What? Don’t you want to be friends with him?”

“Depends what he’s like,” Pansy says after a moment. “I guess we’ll find out when we meet him.”

**September 1986 / 6 years old**

Diagon Alley is a blaze of coppery autumn sunshine and Pansy is shrieking with laughter, running around after Draco, Theo, and a blonde girl called Hannah who’s come to play with them. She points her stick at Theo and shouts a made-up spell; for a moment she begins to hover and then her feet crash back to the ground and she loses her balance, rolls over. As Hannah passes, Pansy sticks out an arm and tugs her down too and they squeal and wrestle for a second. Pansy wins. She always does.

“Careful,” Draco’s nanny calls from the safety of the bench. Pansy ignores her, scrambles back to her feet. After a second Hannah is up too, grass in her plaits. Pansy ducks and smears her hands through a patch of mud.

“Watch,” she says to Hannah and then screams a war-cry, sprinting down the grassy hill and launching herself at an unsuspecting Draco, swiping mud across his face and through his hair as they tumble over.

“Pansy!” he shrieks. From behind them, she can hear Hannah pretend-curse Theo. “Not fair!”

“Not my fault you weren’t looking,” she says, and lets him up. He brushes his arm across his face but it only makes the mud situation worse.

They hear footsteps, and then Draco suddenly pushes past Pansy.

“Father!” he yells, and begins to run in the direction of a figure in black robes with long blonde hair standing in the gate to the park. Pansy sprints after him and they both stagger to a giggling halt in front of Lucius Malfoy. Hannah and Theo follow at a more sedate pace.

“Look at you, you’re a complete mess,” Lucius Malfoy says, surveying the four of them. Pansy feels fingers in her hair, and someone drops a twig over her shoulder. Her hands are still very muddy and she wipes them on her dress. Lucius Malfoy’s expression is cool and neutral, and Draco’s excitement at seeing his father has begun to leach away. He shuffles his feet. Pansy never ever knows when Lucius Malfoy is joking – sometimes he’ll pretend to be cross even when he’s not, but sometimes he’s really cross and any attempt to wriggle their way out of trouble will just make him angrier. It’s so unlike her own father who doesn’t seem to notice enough to scold her.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Malfoy,” the nanny says, breathlessly arriving, palming her wand and beginning to cast cleaning spells over Draco’s face and clothes, and a spell that yanks Pansy’s hair out of its tangle. Pansy whines and tries to push her away, but stops when she sees Lucius Malfoy’s expression.

“Don’t let me catch my son in this much of a state again,” is all he says, but even Pansy can hear the danger in it. The nanny flushes. Lucius Malfoy turns his attention away from her, and continues as though she’s not there, “Your mothers are nearly finished with their shopping, children, so I thought we could get ice cream before we meet them. How does that sound?”

“Ice cream!” Pansy claps her hands, instantly mollified. Ice cream is her favourite thing in the world after kicking Draco.

“Yes please, Mr Malfoy,” Theo says, and Lucius offers him a brief smile. Theo is the quietest and politest of the three of them; Pansy and Draco are constantly being told to behave more like him but really what do their parents expect? Draco is her mortal enemy and she’s got to defeat him. That’s the way the world _works._

“Can Hannah come?” Draco demands, grabbing Hannah’s hand and dragging her forward. “Please?”

“My mum won’t mind,” Hannah says. “I can go to the shop and ask.”

There is a long, drawn out silence as Lucius Malfoy looks at her. Draco’s hopeful expression slips and he lets go of Hannah’s hand. Hannah puts her arms around herself.

“Not today,” Lucius says. “Come along, Draco, Pansy, Theo.”

“See you next weekend, Hannah!” Draco says, and Pansy smiles at her. Hannah manages a little smile back. Lucius has a hand around Draco’s upper arm and starts to pull him away.

“Ow,” Draco begins to protest, but Lucius interrupts him.

“Hush. I don’t want to see you speaking to people like that, Draco. Do you understand me?”

“But-”

“Am I hearing you contradict me?”

Draco pauses, sullen, and then says, “No, sir.”

“Good.” Lucius lets go of him, and they step into the street. When Pansy looks over her shoulder, Hannah is still standing there under the brown and red trees watching them go.

*

Later, at bedtime, Pansy goes to find her father to say goodnight, pressing aside the office door off the foyer of the townhouse and padding quietly inside. He’s sitting at his desk, staring at a stack of papers, but pushes his big leather chair out when he hears Pansy’s footsteps, lets her climb into his lap.

“Daddy,” she says, when she’s kissed his cheek dutifully. “Can I ask you something?”

“Can you not ask Gwithian?” he asks, pulling his papers a little closer on the desk.

“She didn’t know,” Pansy says. “Please?”

“I suppose,” her father says with a tired smile. Pansy launches into an explanation of what happened at the park in Diagon Alley. Her father makes a humming noise when she’s done, his brows drawing together.

“Mr Malfoy is right, sweetheart,” he says.

Pansy pouts at him. “But Hannah’s fun.”

“Aren’t your other friends fun?”

“Draco and Theo are. But Daphne and Millie and Astoria are boring and just want to play with dolls.”

“Dolls,” her father sighs. “How terribly awful of them.”

“I know. Hannah plays Knights with us. I like her.”

“Pansy,” her father says, a little sterner now. “Sometimes you have to just do as you’re told. If Mr Malfoy didn’t approve of Hannah, then she’s not a worthwhile companion for you. You should only be seen with others who share your station. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Pansy says.

“Good girl,” he responds, and brushes a kiss against her forehead. “Sleep well.”

**September 1991 / 11 years old**

When Draco slinks back into the compartment trailed by an equally sullen-looking Crabbe and Goyle, Pansy throws a box of sweets in his direction. “He didn’t go for it, then?”

“No. Stupid half-blood.” Draco sniffs. His cheeks are still bright red. “Not as if we wanted him anyway.”

Pansy raises her eyebrows at him incredulously. Not four months ago there he was hoping that Harry Potter would be his friend and now he’s ready to give up?

“Who’s this?” Theo asks from behind his book.

“Harry Potter, duh,” Pansy says, shuffling over so Draco can sit next to her, leaning his shoulder against his. Narcissa Malfoy’s maxims about never contradicting or disagreeing with your husband in public are curling around her head. “Did you forget, Nott?”

Theo gives her a dirty look over the top of his book. “Of course not. I just don’t see the point in talking to him, that’s all.”

“Alliances,” Pansy says, smoothly. Draco is one long slouched line. He’d never dare sit like this in front of his parents, but they’re on the way to Hogwarts, they’re free of the constant reminders and eyes and responsibilities. All they have to do is make a decent showing in class and not get into too much trouble. It’s an exciting prospect to have this much _freedom._

“What?” Daphne pipes up.

“Yes, what?” Millie adds.

Pansy rolls her eyes. “Nothing your husbands won’t do for you, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure your self-reliance will come in handy,” Daphne shoots back and Pansy gives her an arch smile and twists her wrist just a little so the glass bracelet glints in the weak sunlight trickling through the train window.

Daphne scowls, but Pansy is already turning back to Draco, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Potter doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. What an idiot.”

“Whatever,” Theo says, and pulls his book up to hide his face. Pansy resists the urge to kick him, but kicking Theo has never been as satisfying as kicking Draco, and it won’t get him out of the mood he’s been in all summer because of his new stepmother. She really doesn’t know why she bothers.

Pansy doesn’t get to actually see Harry Potter until they’re ascending the steps of the Great Hall. To be honest she’s more interested in the staircases and ancient, echoing, draughty grandeur, the kind that has seen more stories and lives than she could even imagine. She’s grown up in an old townhouse and a manor, been in and out of the great houses of Wizarding Britain her whole life, but they are nothing to compared to this. If she were prone to flights of fancy, she might think that Hogwarts itself is alive. The funny thing is that she wouldn’t exactly be wrong.

Beside her, Draco is not staring in awe at the ceiling or listening to the stern old bat of a witch who’d introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. She follows his gaze to a trio of students across from them – a pale, ginger, freckled boy who can only be a Weasley, a black girl with lots of curls, and a boy with coppery-brown skin, a shock of black hair, and big round glasses. As he shifts, she sees the bottom of a scar poking out from beneath his fringe.

“So that’s Harry Potter,” she whispers in the vicinity of Draco’s ear.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

*

Just as the excitement from arriving at Hogwarts is fading into a blur of lessons and Quidditch Games and giddy running around the castle, the first years get their pen pals. No-one really knows how it works or which poor beleaguered civil servant matches hundreds of children from eight different wizarding schools each year, but the first letters begin swooping in around November. It’s exciting, to expand the world beyond Britain, and all of the adults seem to think it’s a capital idea for both practising translation magic (their teachers) and international magical co-operation (certain parents).

 _Tanzania is an important player in the International Confederation,_ Lucius Malfoy writes to his son. _This is a useful connection to have._

“Such a shame it’s not someone from Castelobruxo,” Manuela Parkinson says to her daughter over the Christmas holidays before promptly changing the subject.

“Tuwalole likes potions too!” Draco says in a rare show of enthusiasm, showing Pansy the relevant section of his letter. “Who’s yours?”

There are many things she could say in response. His name is Yang Jiahao. He goes to an elite magical school called Bùxing Zhě which is the oldest one in China. It is currently swimming in the Yangtze River and getting angry about some Muggle thing called the Three Gorges Dam. She has absolutely no idea how a magic school with legs works, has a brief pang of jealousy that Hogwarts only has moving staircases, but is mollified by the discovery that Bùxing Zhě is the exception rather than the rule.

Despite his lack of an exact location now, he is originally from a small village in Yunnan Province. His characters are very precise, like tiny ink-smudged birds that blur through the shimmer of the translation charm. He seems thoroughly un-objectionable and she tells Draco and their new friend Blaise as much with a shrug. Draco pulls a face.

“Cool,” Blaise says, proffering his letter from Nigeria for Pansy to have a look at.

“Boring,” Draco says and then yelps when Pansy digs an elbow into his ribs in retaliation.

**April 1988 / 8 years old**

They move into Avebury Hall at the beginning of April, three weeks after Pansy’s grandfather dies. She’s not exactly bothered by his passing – she’d faked a few sniffles for the sake of her parents, accepted the rare hug from her mother – but really all he’d been to her was an occasional smile or pat on the head, sweets or dresses, long rambling boring stories, and insistences that she had better make nice to that Malfoy boy if she wanted to keep the understanding between their families alive. She hadn’t really listened to him. Draco’s her sometimes-enemy, sometimes-friend. She sees him more often than not. What does the future matter?

One rainy afternoon when her parents are distracted by the imminent arrival of her new brother, she goes poking around in the attic. She’s already found the lake and the round barrow, spent her days after lessons running through the woods around the house and peering at the stupid Muggles who come to see the ancient stone circle that lies outside the village. The house hasn’t been so interesting, but Gwithian had told her firmly to stay inside in case anything happened; she can’t stand to sit to her reading practise so she’d started to wander and then she’d found the drunkenly tilting staircase and now she’s here.

The light is heavy and grey through the arched window at one end of the attic. She tip-toes across the creaking floorboards, peering at all the junk left behind by previous generations and being very careful not to touch the obviously magical objects. A lot of it is just old, carved furniture that probably went out of fashion in the Middle Ages. She settles down in one of the big wooden and gold thrones, looks around at her empty, dust-stained kingdom.

“Hello?” a voice says from somewhere in the gloom and Pansy inhales sharply, her heart suddenly skidding into panic.

“Who’s there?” she says, sliding off the chair. It’s a woman’s voice, low and warm. She’s met the foul-mouthed knight who haunts the dovecote, but no-one said anything about a woman ghost. She measures the distance between her and the door, doesn’t really like her chances if she has to run.

“Don’t be scared,” the voice says. “You sound scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Pansy says, but her voice wobbles at the end and the woman laughs.

“Yes, you are. It’s alright to be scared. Sensible even. Only foolish people have no fear. But I won’t hurt you.”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Come over here and have a look.”

This is a bad idea. This is how every cautionary tale Gwithian has ever told her ends. Jumping into things without looking is the kind of thing all the adults say is _so very, terribly Gryffindor_ and Pansy is old enough to know that they don’t mean it as a compliment. She walks forward anyway, clenches her fists, readies herself to run but it’s just a portrait of a woman, the gilt frame leaning precariously against the side of the chimney shaft, half in shadow.

“Hello,” the woman says. Her skin is pale brown, like Pansy’s, and she has narrow, dancing dark eyes framed by thick eyebrows. Her lower face and hair are hidden by a white scarf and her dress is made of red cloth heavily embroidered with gold. A jewelled bracelet sparkles on her wrist and there isn’t a wand in her lap like most magical portraits. Pansy can’t tell if she’s smiling or not but there are crinkles around her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Pansy,” Pansy says, before she thinks. “Pansy Parkinson. Who are _you_?”

“One of your ancestors, I think.” The woman looks at her for a moment, assessing. “I’m Ophelia Vashti Parkinson Dehkordi. It’s nice to meet you, little descendant.”

“You’re one of my _ancestors_?” Pansy stares at her, her panic quickly giving way to excitement. “When were you alive?”

“What year is it now?”

“1988.”

“Oh. Well. Nearly two hundred years ago. I was born in 1787, by your calendar. 1166 by mine. Though you must be of my brother’s line rather than mine, as I imagine my direct descendents are still in Persia.”

It’s further back than Pansy has ever really thought about before. She has seen the family tree, of course, can recite back a little bit but after about a hundred years it all gets boring. And in any case, names are nothing compared to portraits and none of the portraits on the gallery are the slightest bit interesting, not compared to the ones at Malfoy Manor that all like to shout and scream. She folds down into a sitting position so that she’s on eye level with Ophelia. “Why are you up here?”

“My brother didn’t like me,” Ophelia says, airy. Her bracelet jingles as she waves her hand. “He had me taken down as soon as Papa died. I don’t exactly fit with everyone else downstairs.”

“Why?”

Ophelia is now counting off on her fingers. “Well I converted to my mother’s religion, married for love, ran away to the Persian Empire, and spent most of my life as a spy. Pick any reason you fancy.”

“What’s the Persian Empire?” Pansy has had basic geography lessons with one of a string of governesses, doesn’t remember seeing that on any of the maps or hearing about it from her father’s travels.

“It’s between Europe and India. South of Russia, but before you get to China,” Ophelia says after a moment. “I don’t think I was painted with a map, more’s the pity, or I’d show you.”

“I don’t think it exists anymore.”

“Well, that’s the way of the world I suppose. Empires rise and fall.” She laughs. “Did that make any sense? How old are you, Pansy?”

“Eight,” Pansy says.

“Oh. I thought you were a bit older. It doesn’t matter. It’s nice to see another face after all this time.”

“It’s exciting to find you.”

“It always is when you find something you weren’t expecting. Sometimes it turns out to be lifesaving but you won’t know that until it saves your life.”

“Were you _really_ a spy?”

“Oh yes. We were at war, you see, and my husband was a diplomat. It ended up being quite sensible having me spy for him. No-one suspects a dutiful wife of anything and no-one would notice me missing if I was wearing a disillusionment charm.”

This is much more interesting than trying to read the boring history book about Muggles and witch hunts. There’s something in Ophelia’s voice – a lilt, a flair for telling stories and leaving just the right amount hanging – that makes Pansy think she could sit up here forever. She could bring Draco, even. She’s only been here for a few minutes and already Ophelia is so much more interesting than the other kids and their dolls and squabbles, so much more interesting than the adults and their constant obsession with manners.

She is about to ask what a diplomat is or what the war was about when she hears Gwithian calling from down the stairs. She stiffens, glances towards the door.

“Go,” Ophelia says, and then as Pansy stands, “and Pansy?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell anyone about me, alright?”

Pansy looks at her – her bracelet, the crinkles around her eyes – and tucks the knowledge that she’s related to a _spy_ right in the corner of her ribcage where no-one will find it.

“I won’t,” she says. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell _anyone._ ”

**May 1988 / 8 years old**

“I think my old lockpicks are somewhere in all this junk,” Ophelia says one afternoon. “I lost it on my last visit home. If you can find it it’s yours.”

“A lockpick?”

“It opens doors.”

“I could just use a _wand_.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady. Some doors won’t respond to wands. It’s sensible to have more than one trick up your sleeve.”

“Will you teach me?”

Ophelia’s eyes are sharp and deadly and Pansy feels a thrill shudder right down her spine. “Find it and we’ll see.”

**January 1989 / 9 years old**

Despite the frost and the snapping bite of the wind, Pansy and the boys are out in the shallows of the lake, sailing the magical boats that had been an apology from Pansy’s father for missing Yule. He’d sent them from Indonesia and with a long letter about local legend Marilag Avelino, a witch who ran away to sea to become a deadly pirate, queen of the krakens and the terror of the Sunda Strait. He was supposed to be back this morning, as a matter of fact, but an owl had arrived over breakfast with apologies as Lucius Malfoy had picked a duel and her father had been called as a second. Her mother had serenly ignored this turn of events and invited some of her social circle over for a picnic to wait for the gentlemen. They are all sitting on deckchairs huddled in fine woollen mufflers and warming charms, sipping hot chocolate and gossiping amongst themselves. Hanging off the mast of her boat, Pansy can see the other little girls – Daphne, Astoria, Millie – sitting around their mothers’ feet.

She adjusts the sail and skims through the shallows of the lake, feeling the wind snarl tangles through her hair. Theo is crouching at the stern looking slightly green and very fed up; it had taken the combined efforts of Pansy and Draco to get him aboard but Pansy is wondering if it was worth it as he’s been no use at all in their battles. Draco has Vince _and_ Greg, claims that Carob Jack had a bigger crew and more ships than Marilag Avelino _so there_ which is vastly unfair, but Pansy has the smaller, lighter boat so she’s had the advantage up until now.

There’s a crunch, and she hooks her rope in place, twists to see that Draco has pulled up alongside her, that Vince has hooked a long pole between their boats.

“Prepare to be boarded!” Draco yells. “Surrender and we’ll spare your life!”

“Marilag Avelino _never_ surrenders,” Pansy declares, hanging onto the edge of her boat and kicking an arc of water right up into Draco’s face.

“Get her!” he splutters, correctly surmising that Theo, hunched ever further into the stern, is going to be no threat at all.

Vince and Greg are onto her before she knows it, their combined weight sending all three of them toppling off the side of the boat and into the water. It’s only about two feet deep but the cold is like a punch, sudden and deadly. She squirms out from beneath where they’re flailing, tries to catch her breath. There’s something slimy in her hair. Draco is laughing at her, still infuriatingly dry and Pansy’s screaming the naughty words Uncle Juan taught her before she even realises they’re coming out of her mouth, scrambles up onto his boat and shoves him backwards and across it, sending them both flying back into the water. Her head knocks into his, hard.

Suddenly, there are hands locking around her arms and pulling her bodily off Draco who sits up in the water, panting and running his hand through his soaking wet hair.

“What is the meaning of this?” her father says, and his voice is deceptively calm. Pansy’s stomach drops into her toes.

“Oh no,” Draco says archly. “Someone’s in trouble.”

“Come mierda!” she hisses at him, wriggling against her father’s grip. “Te hijo de puta!”

In a single instant, her father explodes. “Pansy Consuelo Parkinson! Apologise!”

“But he-”

“ _Now,_ ” her father snaps.

“Sorry, Draco,” she says. Draco looks like he can’t decide whether to continue gloating or give in to the extreme uncomfortableness of the situation. Vince and Greg and Theo are hovering awkwardly with the boats, Theo still dry, Vince and Greg up to their waists in water.

“It’s alright,” he mutters to the surface of the lake, and Pansy’s father lets go of her.

“Thank you, Draco. That’s very kind of you. Come along, Pansy.”

Pansy has no choice but to follow her father out of the water. Her wet dress slaps uncomfortably against her legs and her shoes squelch. She pushes weed out of her eyes. All of the ladies are silent, watching, and she can see her mother’s bright red cheeks, Lucius Malfoy’s cold, unimpressed gaze. She wants to shrivel up and _die._

Her father, still icily silent, deposits her on a chair on the terrace and quickly dries her clothes with a wave of his wand.

“Stay there,” he commands, and Pansy nods silently, trying not to cry. She’s not going to cry. She’s _not._ She pulls her feet up to her chest and rests her knees on them. She knows she shouldn’t have sworn at Draco, knows that Uncle Juan told her strictly not to use any of the things he taught her in her parents’ hearing. After a few minutes, her mother rustles up the steps, all elegant gold jewellery and petrol blue wool.

“Oh Pansy,” she says, and her voice is just dripping with hurt, her eyes large and reproachful the way they always are when she tells Pansy off. Pansy tries to make herself even smaller. “How could you show us up like this? I thought Nanny had taught you better.”

“Vince and Greg pushed me first,” Pansy tries, but her mother is already shaking her head.

“You shouldn’t have been on those boats to begin with, Merlin knows why your father thought they were a good idea. Why couldn’t you sit with the other girls and behave yourself?”

“The boats are _fun._ I was being a pirate _._ ”

Her mother just sighs, brushes a speck of invisible lint off her dress. “Little girls aren’t pirates. I would have thought you were old enough to understand that.”

“O…” Pansy says, and then shuts her mouth sharply. Ophelia would certainly think that a pirate was a valid occupation, if it got you something you needed. Ophelia loved the sound of the boats when Pansy ran up to tell her about them. Her mother is not supposed to know about Ophelia. Pansy can’t let slip about this. “Yes, Mummy.”

“The damage is done,” her mother continues. “But we’ll do our best. Go and sit in your room and think about what you’ve done.”

*

She’ll never know what agreement her parents came to, but the next week she’s dragged in front of Narcissa Malfoy and her life becomes a relentless schedule of dress fittings and constant reprimands and endless lessons in table manners, conversation, event planning, and household management. She doesn’t get to see Draco anymore. She doesn’t get much of a chance to go and talk to Ophelia about spycraft or pirates or the interesting bits of history her governess leaves out. She tries to complain to her mother, but her mother just plants a kiss about a foot to the left of Pansy’s ear and doesn’t even try to listen.

“It’s for the best,” she says. “You have to learn these things. And anyway, Mrs Malfoy might be your mother in law one day. Work hard and impress her.”

*

Impressing Narcissa Malfoy is harder than it sounds.

“Stand up straight, Pansy, how many times do I have to tell you?” Narcissa Malfoy says.

“Don’t show your teeth when you smile,” Narcissa Malfoy says.

“You’ll never be as pretty as the Greengrass girls so you’ll have to dress to make up for it,” Narcissa Malfoy says.

What Narcissa Malfoy doesn’t say, but Pansy learns anyway:

  1. Being polite and being vicious are in no way mutually exclusive.
  2. The world will always come down harder on you because you are a woman. There’s no point complaining about it when you can use it to your advantage.
  3. The only thing that matters is don’t get caught.



**December 1990 / 10 years old**

Pansy’s second brother is born at Yuletide the December before she turns eleven. She’s as ambivalent about him as the first one – if her parents had been so considerate as to shorten the age gap between their children she might have had more use for a pair of brothers, but as it happens she really doesn’t have much time for a gummy, sticky two-year-old who leaves marks on all her dresses and can’t climb trees. Her father is over the moon to have another son, her mother is indifferent as usual, and with all the chaos Pansy has finally been able to sneak out and explore a cave system she found in the woods just over the boundary wall.

Three days before Yule itself, when Pansy’s mother finally manages to drag herself out of bed, they have the Malfoys over for celebratory drinks. Pansy is on hostess duty with her father, and finds herself standing on the front step and peering through the dancing snowflakes towards the gate, pulling her new fur-lined cloak close around her shoulders and trying not to dance on the spot with excitement. She knows by now that it’s politics that decides who she gets to spend time with, which for the last year has meant inordinate amounts of time sitting and watching Theo Nott read books or trying to one-up the odious, whiny Millie Bulstrode. She only ever sees Draco at dance lessons and the occasional party.

“You’re not forgetting me,” she’d asked at one of them when she’d managed to catch him alone. “Are you?”

Draco had hesitated, had dropped the bored, aloof front he puts on in front of everyone at social gatherings and then nudged her shoulder with his. “No, of course not. I’m just busy with Father and you’re busy learning how to be a lady. It’s the way things work.”

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Pansy had pouted. “The only thing that’s interesting is the dresses, and even those I can’t run around in.”

“We have to stop being kids one day,” Draco had said, and then they’d been joined by Crabbe, Goyle, and Theo and immediately Draco had turned away from her, continued discussing racing brooms like she wasn’t there. She’d blinked, surprised and more than a little hurt.

The next day, a letter had come with her favourite sweets attached and no note. She’d been tempted to drop them into the toilet, but decided against it, climbed her favourite tree to eat them. Life’s not fair. Narcissa Malfoy has made that perfectly clear. Pansy’s inheritance is beautiful dresses and lots of money and being a perfect wife and society hostess – it’s not the big family from Venezuela that she barely knows, it’s not a history made up of women like Ophelia. It’s just duty, a duty that feels more and more like a boulder around her neck with every passing month.

Maybe if she gets Draco by her side the way her mother keeps alluding to it will be a bit more bearable. Draco doesn’t care that Pansy’s humour is sharp and that her elbows are sharper. Draco doesn’t care that she’s not pretty and blonde and air-headed like Daphne Greengrass. When they go to Hogwarts and grow up and run the world, no-one will be able to tell them what to do.

Three figures finally become apparent through the haze and quickly resolve themselves into the shape of the Malfoys. The customary greetings and the welcome cup are quickly hurried through, and she exchanges mean little grins with Draco. Her father and Lucius Malfoy are speaking to each other warmly, Narcissa Malfoy looking ethereally elegant in a silver-lined cloak only she could pull off. Pansy wonders whether one day she’ll get to look like that on her husband’s arm, aloof and admired and icy.

“Come in, come in,” Pansy’s father says. “Jolly cold tonight, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Lucius Malfoy says, and then half turns. “Offer Pansy your arm, Draco.”

Draco does as he’s asked, and Pansy slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, their cloaks brushing together. She swallows her sudden giddiness at having him here, at having him to herself for the first time in _forever_. They go through to the Christmas drawing room where Pansy’s mother is waiting with two-year-old Pedro and baby Peregrine. Narcissa Malfoy disentangles herself from her husband, hands the beautiful cloak to Gwithian and goes to sit next to Pansy’s mother, taking Pedro onto her lap and cooing at the baby.

“Go introduce Draco to your new brother, Pansy,” her father says, and Pansy steers Draco in the direction of the hearth. One of the house elves brings them fruit punch, and she sinks onto a pouffe, posture habit now more than anything. Draco’s telling her about his latest flying lessons and the dives he’s been practising with Theo. She’s half-listening, making all the right noises – pureblood girls don’t fly until Hogwarts, more’s the pity – but really trying to overhear the low-voiced conversation her father is having with Lucius Malfoy. She can’t for the life of her make out what they’re saying, but it must be something interesting from the quick, oily shift of expressions across both of their faces. Ophelia would know what they were saying. Perhaps she’ll be able to help.

About halfway through her glass of punch, she sees Lucius Malfoy clap her father on the shoulder and they come to join the ladies, taking seats in the pair of armchairs Pansy is never allowed to sit in. Once Lucius has made all the appropriate noises over Pedro and Peregrine, he leans back, says, “Shall we exchange Yuletide gifts, then?”

“Of course.” Narcissa Malfoy opens her delicate purse, pulls out a small set of gifts wrapped in silver and white. “Here we are.”

The gifts are very nice, and very non-committal: a beautiful, embroidered scarf for her mother; a book for her father; a set of balls for Pedro which he promptly tries to put in his mouth; and a silver rattle for the new baby. Pansy herself gets a very pretty new quill and ink set which is probably something to do with the penmanship she can never seem to get right. Her father’s face is set in the wide smile that means he’s thinking something that he doesn’t want other people to know.

“Thank you,” she says, prettily, and Narcissa Malfoy smiles at her.

“Draco,” she says, before Manuela can get to her wand to summon the gifts from under the tree. “You have a little something for Pansy as well, don’t you?”

Pansy sees her parents exchange a significant look. Lucius Malfoy is watching his son calmly. She feels her heart suddenly thud into her throat. She knows the traditions as well as every other pureblood girl of good birth, wonders whether this is the moment everything gets confirmed. Draco pulls a small box out of his robes which is wrapped in the same white and silver paper, hands it to her. Pansy unwraps it slowly and carefully, holding her breath. It’s a black velvet jewellery box, and when she cracks it open she finds a bracelet made of smooth green glass, tiny animals etched onto each of the beads. When she looks up, Draco is looking at her, fidgeting with his hands in his lap, and she feels a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“What is it, Pansy?” her mother asks, and Pansy holds up the box to show her. Her mother gasps, turns to Pansy’s father who’s smiling properly now. A bracelet signifies intent, a bracelet means that murky understandings are becoming more solid. It’s a first step that continues with real jewels, and then a ring, and then a wedding contract. It’s confirmation that, unless anything happens, one day she’s going to be the next Mrs Malfoy.

“It’s beautiful,” she tells Draco, and he’s smiling at her too. _Everyone_ is smiling at her. In a silly moment, she wishes that she could gather all the smiles in the room up and put them some place safe for a rainy day. “Thank you. Will you put it on for me?”

He does, clicking the clasp into place and Pansy twists her wrist this way and that to admire the way the light falls on it.

“Pansy,” her mother starts after a moment. “You’ve got your present for Draco under the tree. How about we do that one first?”

Pansy is unaware of any present that doesn’t involve Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans but does as her mother says, and hands Draco a box that turns out to contain an elegant silver tie pin shaped like a snake with an unblinking green eye. Draco grins at her, and she grins back, looks back down at her bracelet, at her future coalescing before her eyes.

When the Malfoys leave, Pansy walks with them out to the front doorstep and before she can lose her nerve, presses a quick kiss to Draco’s cheek. He flushes bright pink, and Narcissa Malfoy tinkles a laugh.

“Thank you,” Pansy says, and he rubs his cheek, smiles at her again, and then they’re gone.


	2. two

**February 1994 / 14 years old**

_So the biggest news is that Draco and I are together now. I mean – we were always together. I’ve always known I’ll be his wife one day. It’s the way things are done here, especially amongst families like ours. But like he’s just been my best friend and then we kissed for the first time last week. Well, I kissed him. He’s telling everyone it’s the other way around which I would object to but I like having secrets. I like the fact it was me who kissed him. He was being a git and had left me out of a prank on Potter and then we had a horrible fight and then…I kissed him. To shut him up. It definitely worked. It was nice, I guess? Weird. But nice. I don’t know. Daphne’s already kissed a boy but I don’t want to ask her because she’s not my friend and she’ll gloat something horrible – she doesn’t know that I haven’t been kissed or kissed anyone yet. Have you kissed anyone yet? You don’t have to answer. I’m just curious and I also might force you to do something about it if you like someone. I know what you’re like. The end of the world would happen and you wouldn’t do anything, you’d just stand there watching it and say ‘hmm, interesting’ and ask clever questions and not, you know, run away…_

*

_That is a weirdly specific scenario, Pansy. I don’t think I’m that passive. And I don’t mind talking about this. That’s what friends are for, right? And I think you’re my friend. We’re still writing to each other after all, and most of the students in my year have stopped._

_There was a girl back home, and…ok, this is not exactly a secret but it kind of is and…I’m a boy. You know that. But I was born in a girl’s body (ie) wrong. When I left for the final entrance exam (which is finding Bùxing Zhě in the first place), I cut off my hair and stole my cousin’s old clothes, and then when I got there, the Potions master who is in charge of the new students talked to me, and he said that it was fine for me to continue on as a boy, but that I should wait until I’d finished growing to take the potions which would change my body physically. I’ve got potions which mean my breasts haven’t grown in and my period hasn’t started, but none of the rest of it yet. So I changed my name, and everyone knows me as a boy and I feel so much more like myself but I’m not quite ready to start kissing girls yet because I’m still not totally a boy. Is that…does that make sense?_

_Also, congrats! I should have started with that. I’m so happy for you and Draco. That’s really exciting…_

*

_It does make sense. I think. We have a few kids who are similar here. The dormitories in all the houses don’t let boys into the girls dorms because propriety and everything, but there was this…well she’s a girl, actually, but when she got here in September she was a boy and the staircase let her up without turning into a waterslide the way it did when Draco tried to get into my room to prank me in first year. I don’t really understand beyond that but I’m glad you feel more like yourself._

_You are exactly that passive and as your friend it is my duty to point out to you that you have still not stopped letting the older kids try and shove you into the river. You have no leg to stand on. And thanks for the thanks. It’s going well. There’s a broom cupboard on the sixth floor which is pretty good for hiding from everyone. But I bet the gardens at his manor house have good places too and I’m sure mine do as well. My summer is going to be good; I hope! We might even get a visit from my grandparents from Venezuela. I hope Uncle Juan comes. He always says he likes to update my vocabulary with things my mother would never tell me, so I’ll have to write you all the swear words and things he brings with him. What are you doing over the summer?_

*

_You’re going to say that I’m being really boring but I’ve got my Pledging in September and I’ve got to study all summer. I’m aiming for best in year so that means I have a lot of work to do. To pre-empt you, the Pledging is a series of public examinations we sit in our fourth year at Bùxing Zhě, which first of all determine if we can stay there (if you don’t pass in the top 75 of the year you’re asked to leave) and then also means you choose your specialisms for advanced study. It’s going to be quite intense but I’m looking forward to it._

_You summer sounds fun. And thanks. That means a lot._

*

_…we’ve got this thing called the Triwizard Tournament that’s just started. It’s this European wizarding competition but it’s only us, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang – the smaller regional schools haven’t been invited. Anyway. You will not be at all surprised to learn that Saint Potter has been chosen as the fourth champion in the Triwizard Tournament even though he’s a fourth year like us and only students older than 17 were supposed to put their names in. HOW DO THESE THINGS KEEP HAPPENING? HOW MUCH ATTENTION CAN ONE BOY NEED?_

_We’ve made these badges. I’ve enclosed one for you so you can support our real champion, Cedric Diggory, too. Draco says hi. He’s been all weird recently – I swear, he’s got two modes, kissing me or talking about Potter. Perhaps it’s brain trauma. He got turned into a ferret by our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, which was really, really scary – Professor Moody was bouncing him up and down on the stone floor. Luckily, Draco only had bruises but his father was so angry._

_How was your Pledging, by the way? I’m so glad we don’t have big exams for another year and a half, and really, Yang Jiahao, only you would relish the prospect of exams like that. Lucky you became my friend before I figured out how like Hermione Granger you are, but hopefully you’re less annoying than her in person…_

*

_One of your teachers? That’s horrific! I hope the man has had disciplinary action taken against him!...Thank you for asking. The Pledging was fine – intense and long, hence the slow response, but I got top marks in nearly everything so I’ve been allowed to stay on and get my first choice in specialisations. I’m trying to decide between Metaphysical Magics and Practical Conjuring. The first is all to do with abstracts – space, time, love, all of that – and the second is much more useful. You get to learn how to make portkeys and time-turners and engineer things! I’m wondering if I can get away with doing both of them. I’m going to ask the Chief Examiner when I get my prizes for best in year. Wish me luck!_

_I very much I hope I’m not a teacher’s pet. The teachers here don’t really go in for that kind of thing. Maybe Hermione Granger will grow out of it (I can see you rolling your eyes at me for being nice about her, don’t think I can’t!)_

_In other good news, I’ve made friends with one of our new arrivals from Fenghuang in Beijing because she wants to study the same courses as me. Her name is Liu Ning, and she’s a bit of a wild child, but she’s from one of the most famous historical wizarding families in Beijing. It’s quite cool to meet the descendant of several famous heroes and dragon-riders! Even cooler that she wants to hang out with me! Somehow, she manages to get all her work done and then drags me on adventures around the place and also finds time to flirt with all of the girls on the Quidditch team – she’s got her eye on the captain but sadly nothing has come of it yet. She’s also obsessed with this Spanish singer called Gloria Estefan and wants me to learn Spanish with her. I’m tempted. We’re learning English here at school anyway, and then aside from that and Mandarin, Spanish is one of the most commonly spoken language in the world. I know you speak it, so would you mind writing your letters in Spanish from now on so I can practise? (Don’t worry, I won’t share them with Liu Ning)._

*

_hiciste un amigo! Estoy tan orgulloso!_

**June 1990 / 11 years old**

“Miss Pansy!”

Pansy freezes, still bent over the hidden door she’d found at the back of the cellar. Her ring of lockpicks jingles, and she cups her fingers around them gently to mute them. She’s been coming down here for weeks trying to practise on this stupid door, but it’s a different kind of lock to the ones on her bedroom and her father’s office and it’s proving remarkably stubborn. She knows she’ll be getting a wand soon, already knows the unlocking charm, and knows exactly where the door leads but what’s the point of a secret tunnel if you can’t get into it from the house?

“Miss _Pansy_!” Gwithian now actually sounds annoyed, so Pansy pockets her lockpicks and scoops up a bottle of what the label informs her is strawberry liquor and makes for the door to the cellar, emerging with what she hopes is wide-eyed innocence.

“I’m here, Gwithian,” she calls and Gwithian’s face appears over the servants’ bannister.

“Why are you _there_? The guests have started arriving,” Gwithian says, snapping her long fingers and disappearing a cobweb stuck to the back of Pansy’s party dress. “Go on, go and mingle. And I’ll be having that.”

“I thought the bottle was pretty.”

“It is. But you’re too young to be drinking quite yet. Go on, out you go.”

Pansy slips out of the servants’ door and into the main foyer of the hall, lengthening her spine out of habit and tipping her head up as she crosses the conservatory and emerges onto the terrace, descending the steps into the rose garden. The lockpicks are heavy in her skirts and she smooths her hands across them, making sure they don’t show from the outside.

“Here she is, the little princess!” she hears and suddenly hands are grabbing her waist, lifting her into the air and spinning her around. She squeals and bats at them – Uncle Juan settles her back down onto the ground. Over his shoulder she can see her mother caught in conversation with an early arrival, sending a tight-lipped look in their direction. “Pretty dress.”

“It matches the garden,” Pansy says, spreading the light green skirts between her hands to show her uncle the silk-appliqued roses. “I chose it with Mrs Malfoy.”

“And it matches your bracelet,” Uncle Juan grins at her, all messy dark hair and white teeth against his tanned face. He’s the handsomest of her uncles, and the most fun – whenever he pays attention to her it feels as though she’s the most important person in the world. He is also – as she’s overheard her mother say many times – a good-for-nothing flirt who will never bring honour to the family. Pansy doesn’t really care or think much about that last bit. “Congratulations. Manuela told me about your understanding. How do you feel?”

Pansy shrugs delicately but then gives up the pretence to match her uncle’s grin. It is, after all, the first time she’s been allowed to wear the bracelet in public. “Draco’s my best friend.”

“Well that’s an encouraging start,” Uncle Juan says and then ruffles her hair until she ducks, protesting. “I’m glad for you, carina.”

“Thank you.”

“No thanking me. Enjoy the party. I’ll see you after.”

Pansy presses a dutiful kiss to his cheek and then watches as he lopes off in the direction of her mother, watches her mother’s shoulders stiffen, and then turns to find that the Greengrasses have arrived and are being furnished with drinks by the house elves and greeted by her father. Pansy snags a glass of pink lemonade and sets out across the lawn to greet them – Daphne is draped in green-blue, and Astoria is in pale pink and they are beautiful, the Greengrass sisters, like people who shouldn’t really exist. Pansy’s stomach clenches just a little, but she lifts her chin even more, refuses to let it show on her face.

“Hello Mr and Mrs Greengrass,” Pansy says, slipping up beside her father and dimpling at them. “Hello Daphne, Astoria.”

“Don’t you look lovely, Pansy,” Mrs Greengrass says, and Pansy feels her father’s hand settle on her shoulder. “What a pretty bracelet!”

“Thank you,” Pansy keeps her smile constant, tries not to glance over to see Daphne’s reaction. “Draco Malfoy gave it to me for Yule.”

Mrs Greengrass is too polite to let her expression slip, but Pansy sees the quick, sharp look in her eyes. Her father’s fingers tighten. Mr Greengrass addresses her father: “you must be _delighted,_ old fellow.”

“Quite,” Pansy’s father says. “It was such a special day.”

“They’ll make the loveliest couple,” Mrs Greengrass adds, and if there’s a slight strain in her voice, no-one comments on it. “Is Mrs Parkinson on the terrace?”

“Yes,” Pansy’s father says. “I’ll come with you. Pansy, make sure your guests are comfortable.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she responds and he squeezes her shoulder again and leaves with the Greengrasses in tow. Daphne has turned pink, folds her arms.

“No way,” she says, eyeing the bracelet. Astoria looks between them cautiously.

“No way _what_?” Pansy asks, attempting to sound bored.

“Yes no way what, Daphne?” she hears behind her and then out of nowhere Draco himself has appeared, his hair tidy and the silver tie pin firmly in place. After a short moment, he turns and kisses Pansy’s cheek and Pansy doesn’t hide her beam at the sulky look that crosses Daphne’s face.

“Daphne was just complimenting my bracelet,” Pansy tells him. “Weren’t you?”

“I’m very happy for you,” Daphne says, unconvincing. Astoria ducks her head to the grass, a lock of golden hair falling loose. Draco gives them both a look of confusion.

“Thank you, darling,” Pansy says, mimicking her mother as best she can. Daphne scowls fiercely at her for a second and Pansy knows she’s won.

They are joined in short order by Theo, Millie Bulstrode, Vince, Greg, and surprisingly, seven year old Rosaline Shafiq who finds a place in the circle next to Astoria with her hands full of daisies and appears unconcerned that she is being talked over whenever she tries to open her mouth.

“Oh, I was going to ask,” Draco drawls after a few moments of the usual jockeying for position that happens whenever they’re all together. Draco usually comes out on top, but it’s a toss-up whether Pansy or Daphne get the last word in. “Who invited Longbottom?”

Pansy glances over her shoulder to see the boy in question hovering in the gate to the rose garden, looking extremely uncomfortable in ill-fitting dress robes. “Why are you asking me?”

When she turns back, Daphne’s expression is gleeful. “Because it’s _your_ house.”

“And you think that gives me any say in the guest list? If I were writing the guest list I know exactly who wouldn’t make the cut.”

“Someone probably wants to suck up to his grandmother, Merlin knows why,” Theo interjects.

“Oh no,” Draco says. “I think he’s coming over. Quick, run away.”

He grabs her hand and tugs her into a run down towards the lake and others follow, all screeching with laughter. When Pansy chances a glance over her shoulder, she sees that Neville Longbottom has stopped his uncertain advance, is standing and watching them go. Perhaps if he wasn’t so weird they’d make more of an effort, but really – who can be friends with someone who cries at the drop of a hat? Her social status would drop like a stone, and Merlin knows she needs as much help as she can get, new understanding with Draco notwithstanding.

They end up lounging around at the lakeside. The boys engage in a skimming competition which Pansy joins, knowing that she probably shouldn’t but deciding that it’s the worth the risk of her parents’ disappointment. Astoria starts weaving flowers through Rosaline Shafiq’s cloudy hair, and Daphne sits and whispers furiously to Millie, both of them sending dirty glances Pansy’s way. After a while, Pansy notices that a little knot of gentlemen – Lucius Malfoy, her father, Theo Nott’s father, Uncle Juan, and someone she doesn’t recognise - have also made their way down to the lake and stand at a safe distance, half-watching the boys’ antics. Pansy skims her stone and then takes a step back and towards them, turning so it looks like she’s watching Theo’s pathetic attempt when really she’s squinting at the adults. Their voices don’t carry, but Ophelia has been teaching her to lip-read and she can make out bits and pieces:

“You know, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be stripped of their wands and rights. We can make sure there’s enough evidence of their stealing magic to…”

“But stolen or not, they are magic. And we could marry them to lower-caste wizards in order to propagate the population.”

“It’s not as if we’re in any danger of dying out, Parkinson.”

“Yes, Nott, but it’s just a waste.”

“And what if they start getting ideas?”

“Make examples, like that…”

She’s jerked back when Draco suddenly whoops, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Did you _see_ that?”

His stone is still hopping and after a twelfth splash is snatched out of the air by a grey hand that disappears back below the surface of the lake.

“Wow,” Pansy says, leaning on her vowels. “I know who to come to when I need stones skimmed.”

Draco pokes her and she leans her head against his shoulder, watches Daphne turn red again. Theo is pointedly ignoring them, and Vince and Greg have started wrestling in the shallows. “You never said you had _mermaids_ in your lake.”

“I like to have my secrets,” Pansy tells him, and kisses him on the cheek. He pulls a face at her.

“You shouldn’t keep secrets from _me,_ ” then, “let’s go and get more punch. We can see if Longbottom has cried yet.”

**December 1994 / 14 years old**

Draco’s expression is appropriately floored when Pansy makes her appearance in the common room for the Yule Ball, swishing her rose-pink tulle skirts for the full effect. She wouldn’t have chosen pink if left to her own devices – she’d eyed up a _gorgeous_ bronze dress in the shop – but her mother had actually put down her magazine and paid attention enough to say that Pansy looked lovely in the pink and that they should absolutely buy it. Pansy had been so shocked and pleased that she’d just gone along with it – and anyway, it is pretty and demure and better than Daphne’s plunging, form-fitting, iridescent thing or Millie’s dark purple and black lace one. It especially matches the choppy bob she’d bullied Gwithian into giving her for this term, the diamond drop earrings she’d ferreted out of the family vault that summer.

As she approaches, she gives Draco the once up and down – he also looks good in new black dress robes with understated silver embroidery on the cuffs and his snake tie pin firmly in place. After an embarrassingly slow start, he’s finally put on some height and his shoulders are starting to broaden. If she were to close her eyes, she can see the couple they’ll become – the couple that instantly dominates whichever room they walk into. She can’t wait to be the Narcissa Malfoy of any event, to know that there are envious eyes following her every move, to be utterly and fully _seen_ wherever she goes.

In the Great Hall, they stand to have their photographs taken and then find their places for the procession of the champions. Draco, predictably, spends most of it glowering at Potter who has somehow convinced Parvati Patil to be his date. She is several inches taller than him and dazzling in a bright orange sari and obviously a much better dancer, considering that she’s been in the same dance lessons as Pansy for years. If Pansy didn’t find it all so funny she might feel sorry for the poor girl, but that’s what comes of getting sorted into Gryffindor.

On Draco’s other side, Daphne suddenly leans into them and hisses, “is that…”

Draco is briefly distracted from trying to explode Potter with his eyes and Pansy follows his gaze to the girl being whirled gracefully around the ballroom by Victor Krum. She’d assumed that the girl was Beauxbatons or something – her hair has been done in lots of tiny black braids threaded with silver and knotted at the nape of her neck, her skirts are a shimmering ice-blue against the deep brown of her skin – but as the girl turns Pansy realises that it’s Hermione Granger, beaming up at her dance partner. The absence of her usual baggy jumpers and loaded bag have done wonders for her posture. She looks like an entirely different person.

“Granger,” Draco says, narrowing his eyes.

On the other side of Daphne, Theo asks the air, “how did a filthy little Mudblood get Viktor Krum as her date?”

“Love potion?” Draco suggests. Daphne shrills a giggle and Theo huffs, amused.

“Weasley looks like he’s going to explode,” Pansy remarks, glancing over to where the boy in question is standing with a blue-saried Padma Patil, his face bright pink above the horrible ancient lace of his dress robes. Really, the Patil twins could have done _so_ much better. They should have _standards_ like any sensible witch. Pansy would not be caught dead anywhere near a blood traitor Weasley even if any of them were good-looking.

Blaise disengages from his date’s mouth long enough to say, “Hope he does, good riddance,” before going back to whispering in her ear.

“Such a loser,” Draco says as the first dance ends and the music shifts into something more lively and Granger and Krum are subsumed by the crowd. Pansy makes a mental note that Granger is sneakier than she seems – it’s something she thinks she should keep an eye on.

*

Later, when they’re dancing, she leans her head against Draco’s shoulder, half-wondering if she can drag him away to snog somewhere but half just enjoying the atmosphere, the buzz, the way neither of them need to think about the steps, the soft music and his warm hand on her waist. Whatever happens, at least she’s got this.

*

_Thank you for the photograph. I’ve pinned it above my bed. You and Draco make a very nice-looking couple, and you look very pretty in that dress! Please find enclosed a picture of me and Liu Ning. I apologise for her face. Sabotaging perfectly nice photographs is her favourite thing to do._

**November 1995 / 15 years old**

She manages to convince Blaise to bring her sweets from Hogsmeade when he’s done snogging his witch of the month and Draco to stay behind from the Hogsmeade trip so they can hang out. Between prefect duties and OWL studies and sucking up to Umbridge, she barely gets him to himself anymore and he doesn’t appear to mind, happy to just be lounging on his bed, chatting and snogging.

Pansy sits back after a while, pulls her shirt off. Draco freezes. “Um…”

“What?” Pansy asks.

“Isn’t it a bit…”

“Don’t you want to go a little further?” she tries for coy but has no idea whether she hits the mark or not. Flirtatious is something she wants to practise. There is no way she’s letting Daphne be better at it than her. Draco is frowning.

“But we’re not supposed to have sex until-”

“There are plenty of things between snogging and sex. Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I, um.” Draco has gone bright red, is steadfastly keeping his eyes somewhere over her left shoulder. “I don’t want to.”

Pansy stares at him for a second and then shrugs, grabs her shirt and starts putting it on again. “Fine.”

When she’s done, she leans in to kiss him again but finds herself gently but firmly pushed away. “Merlin,” she says. “Draco, what’s got into you?”

“Nothing,” Draco says sharply. “Look, could you just go?”

“What? That’s not…”

“Pansy. Leave. Please.”

“Fine,” Pansy says, climbing off him and grabbing her jumper. Her heart is beating too fast. “Be like that.”

She storms out of the empty dormitory, nearly mowing down Blaise who grabs her elbows to steady her. “Might want to button your shirt properly, Parkinson,” he says. “I’ve got your sweets order-”

“Fuck off, Zabini,” she tells him but she does as she walks away, tries to choke down the sudden and furious tears until she makes it back to her own empty dorm, flings herself into her bed and slams the curtains. Why is he suddenly being so weird? What’s so wrong about going a bit further? They’ve been snogging for nearly two years now, and it’s fun, of course it is, but she’s curious, especially since the discovery of an enlightening book over Yule stuffed into the back of the library. Isn’t Draco curious too? Isn’t this what’s supposed to happen? What happens if he _doesn’t_ want her? What does she do then?

*

He doesn’t talk to her and doesn’t talk to her and doesn’t talk to her and it’s like they’re kids again, fighting over some stupid misunderstanding. Blaise takes to falling back from the group and walking next to her, informing her breezily in Spanish that her glare is better than a shield charm when it comes to keeping him safe from all the girls whose hearts he’s broken recently. Daphne, despite a new bracelet from Theo, now occupies Pansy’s old place at Draco’s side, flips her golden mane with smug superiority until Pansy wants to tear her throat out.

“Bloodstains are hard to get out of stone,” Blaise says one day as they go down the steps into the dungeons. When she looks up, he’s grinning but she’s unsure whether it’s supposed to be a warning or a promise.

*

She’s hiding down by the lake, pretending to pay attention to the book Yang Jiahao sent her for her birthday when Draco finally cracks. She doesn’t get any warning, just a shadow looming over her. He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping again, but she tells herself not to care as she scrambles to her feet. The fury is bitter and sparking in her mouth.

“What?” she snaps.

“Can I talk to you?”

She gives him an incredulous stare. “After three weeks of silence? You’ve got some bloody nerve.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“For what? Shoving me away? Fucking _blanking_ me like I’m not your best friend?”

Draco’s mouth works for a second and then he says: “I’m gay. I think.”

All of Pansy’s anger evaporates in one searing moment and she stares at him, her mouth hanging unattractively open. “You _what_?”

“I’m gay.” Draco’s shoulders are hunched in on themselves. “I only really figured it out the last few months.”

“Well, fuck,” Pansy says, pinches the bridge of her nose. The thing is – it fits. It does, now she sees it. She’s always the one who initiates kisses, even if he’s a willing participant. His whole freak-out on being confronted with a pair of tits.

“I know.” He scuffs his foot. “I’m sorry for leading you on.”

Pansy laughs, bitter. “It’s not like you did it deliberately. How did you figure it out?”

Draco flushes. “Blaise kissed me. On a dare. It was just a stupid game, I’m sure he didn’t realise but it just…it felt so different to kissing you and, not that you’re not a good kisser, it’s just…and that day when we were, when you took your top off I just realised I had no interest whatsoever and…” he sighs. “You’re really, really pretty Pansy. It’s not you. I didn’t know what was wrong, why I couldn’t make myself be attracted to you.” He pauses, so uncertain and so unlike his confident, arrogant self that her heart squeezes. “I’m sorry. I’ve fucked this up so much.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“How could I? My father…” Draco swallows, doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Pansy’s heard the spiel about bloodlines enough to know what Lucius Malfoy’s reaction would be. “I don’t know what to do.”

Pansy has never ever heard him sound this lost before and it’s this that punctures the last of her ill-will. She takes his hands. The answer is obvious, at least to her.

“Look at me,” she says, and after a moment he does. “I do. You’re going to get married to me, like a good little pureblood heir. We’ll move into the townhouse in Kensington, or, I don’t know, a villa in the French Riviera and do everything that’s expected of us and dominate the fucking _world_ but no-one will know that we’ve got our own lovers and we’re doing our own thing and we’re just a pair of best friends playing a massive trick on the world? Ok?”

“We have to produce a baby,” Draco points out.

“Pfft. We can grow it in a greenhouse.” Pansy shrugs. “I’m sure someone will have figured out how to do that soon. Pregnancy looks _horrible._ ”

Draco pulls her into his arms at that and she presses her face into his shoulder, breathes through the feeling of the world re-adjusting beneath her feet. He’s still here. He’s still hers. So what if it’s just not in the way she was expecting?

“I love you,” he mumbles into her hair, so quietly she nearly misses it.

“You owe me,” she replies, tucking his admission safely away, feeling the warmth of it trickle down her spine. He loves her. It doesn’t matter that she’s still smarting, that her life is no longer what she expected. Draco’s identity is nothing she gets a say in. She’ll make the most of what she has, and Draco loves her. She’ll _make_ it be enough.

“I’ll convince Mother to bring you with us when we go to Paris before Yule.”

“You know me too well.”

“Yeah,” he says, drawing away. “I do.”

*

_P.S. I got an amazing perfume at this boutique little place in Paris this holiday. I hope the charm stays so you can smell it. Isn’t it gorgeous?_

*

They have Yule at Malfoy Manor that year, all fake cheer and tension. Lucius Malfoy spends most of it prowling around the room talking to all the various Death Eaters and their cronies – Pansy hears rumours they’re having their own party later, decides that this is a secret she doesn’t want to know. She’s heard the screams in the middle of the night. She can put together enough of a picture without sneaking around for confirmation.

She gets another bracelet from Draco – emeralds and pearls and diamonds – and meets his eyes as he fastens the clasp.

“Beautiful,” she says, leaning over to kiss the corner of his mouth. Narcissa is watching them with an indulgent smile on her face.`

“Thought you’d like it,” Draco replies, his new emerald cufflinks flashing as he reaches up to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.

**January 1998 / 18 years old**

She and Blaise bundle back into the empty Slytherin common room seconds before Filch’s footsteps round the corner and she tugs him in the direction of the corridor her room is at the end of, unlocking it, bundling them both in and bolting it firmly shut behind her. Her heart is pounding and Blaise is doubled over and, not for the first time, she blesses the tradition of giving the Head Girl her own private dormitory. She couldn’t have managed this year without it.

“Why did we _do_ that?” Blaise asks his knees.

Pansy hums, flicks the charm covering her board of information off and pins her new discovery to the corner. “I wanted to check in on the hunt to find Potter.”

“We don’t need to know that.”

“Yes, we do. Knowledge is power.”

“Until you meet a Legilimens.”

“Until _you_ do. Who would bother with me? I’m a trophy wife.” She thinks, unbidden, of Ophelia and smiles to herself.

Blaise laughs, and she turns back to him. “You’re insane. That was such a close call. Give me a hug, you utter madwoman.”

“I don’t need one,” she says and Blaise gives her a _look._

“Yeah, well I do.”

“Ok,” Pansy says, and suddenly finds herself with her face in Blaise’s shoulder, breathing in the expensive sandalwood cologne he uses, his arms too-tight around her, his face in her hair, his heart thudding against hers. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s been held like this, doesn’t like the fact she’s missed it. When she pulls away a little, Blaise is looking down at her, and when he kisses her it’s warm and soft and she feels like she might melt away into thin air.

“We can’t,” Pansy says against his mouth, “Draco…”

“I do know that Draco is gay. Just saying.”

“You what?”

“I did kiss him.” Blaise shrugs. “Wasn’t too hard to work out. Don’t worry, no-one else knows.”

“They’d better not,” Pansy says fiercely. Then, for some sudden, insecure reason, “I’m not a conquest, Blaise. I know what you’re like.”

Blaise doesn’t even bother to deny his well-deserved reputation, just grins. “Of course not. You’re my friend.” He pauses, “I also think that we both need an outlet before we explode. Something good in all the bad.”

“Carpe diem,” Pansy murmurs. One of Blaise’s hands is still on her elbow, and the other on her waist. She’s never really realised how good-looking he is – olive skin, thick dark hair, all cheekbones and straight nose and broad-faced, so different from Draco’s ethereal, pale angles. He’s very close and very warm and he’s right – it would be nice to have something good, to have someone to hold onto to. She doesn’t know if she likes him, but she likes the fact that he’s here, sequestered in her room in the middle of the night after following her on a wild goose chase through the school. She likes the fact that she can trust him. He’s looking at her like he’s waiting for permission, his eyes hooded and dark, and she feels something curl hot in her stomach.

“Alright,” she says.

“Alright,” Blaise echoes, and leans in to kiss her again.

**June 1989 / 9 years old**

Under Ophelia’s tutelage, Pansy becomes a thief of secrets: she hangs about in places she shouldn’t, takes advantage of the relative invisibility of a well-behaved pureblood girl, uses her parents’ disinterest in her for her own gain. She finds out about her mother’s correspondence with Gaius Selwyn, discovers the money her father funnels to the Minister for Magic, learns a lot of things about the first wizarding war she doesn’t really understand but writes down in her hidden journal anyway. She collects locks like trophies, walking through the house and nodding at the ones she’s able to pick like they’re her friends, practises climbing out of her bedroom window and spidering along to the nursery, shocking baby Pedro into tears when she tumbles in on him.

She’s got no idea what she’ll do with it all, of course, but perhaps it will be useful for her future husband like Ophelia was to hers. Right now, it passes the time and makes Ophelia herself smile. It doesn’t really matter what the future will bring, will it?

**March 1996 / 16 years old**

_Well a lot has happened since last time I wrote_

_~~He was reckless and stupid he should have let Chen Guo drown~~ _

_~~Don’t be so vicious Liu Ning~~ (sorry Pansy she’s using permanent ink and has sabotaged at least three attempts at this letter, I’ve given up)_

_(Hi Pansy) ~~I’ll be vicious if I want, you won’t tell her what happened properly~~_

_~~I will if you stop looming over me~~ _

_~~Fine~~ _

_So there was a Long attack. I’ve told you about Longs before, right? Giant dragonlike creatures that live in large rivers – there are a lot of them in the Yangtze. Yes, we’re back in the Yangtze at the moment. Bùxing Zhě wanted to go and investigate a new dam the Muggles are building I think. They’re mostly shy except in breeding season and then they go somewhat feral and attack everything that moves with acid and big waves made by flapping their wings. Bùxing Zhě is very used to dealing with them but for that to happen all of us have to go into lockdown. Anyway, Cheng Guo who leads the students who have been picking on me on and off since first year got caught outside with his girlfriend. I noticed they were missing and snuck out – used that lockpick you sent me, I have no idea how you taught yourself to use it it’s so difficult, but anyway – to find them trapped on the little platform under one of the rooves where people go to have secret liaisons. Anyway. I got her in but he got swept over the side…_

_~~So this idiot dove in after him and dragged him out despite the pH of the water from Long acid and spikes and wings and everything, has permanently damaged one eye beyond repair and…~~ _

_And now Chen Guo owes me a life debt, Liu Ning is not letting me out of her sight, and we talked to him and have agreed a truce. Perhaps you should agree a truce to your feud? (I know I’ve been suggesting it since you told me about it but really it’s so much more peaceful when everyone just gets along)._

_Oh I also sent a book that might be helpful, I hope the translation charm holds up, I haven’t had to do one for such a big object before…_

*

_I’m on Liu Ning’s side! What were you thinking?! I didn’t know you were such a bloody Gryffindor, seriously man, this is ridiculous. But I’m glad you’re ok despite your stupid heroics and I’m sorry about your eye. You’ll have to get an eyepatch like the dread witch pirate Marilag Avelino. I’ll find one in Paris when Draco and I next go._

_Thanks for the book! Everyone here is very pleased with it – Theo has been on a tear about the practical section of our DADA OWL because as I said Professor Umbridge is not letting us practise. We do some at home. Draco’s aunt has taught us all a few things too but her spells are very much not on the syllabus and we would all like to pass the exam. Your teacher explains things so clearly! _

_As to Potter and his cronies – no can do. They’re up to something, as usual. We’re all Professor Umbridge’s student support, because Mr Malfoy has told us to suck up to her. She’s not very intelligent so none of us like her very much but appearances matter – and we’re getting cursed and hexed on all sides. I spent several hours in the Hospital Wing with antlers and Ronald Weasley’s older brothers shoved one of our allies into a broken Vanishing Cabinet which is so bloody dangerous. He’s not been the same since, unsurprisingly. It doesn’t feel like a feud anymore, Yang Jiahao, it feels like a war. It’s going to be a war, I think. I read some of my father’s letters a while ago and I’ll sneak into his office again at Easter but things are in motion and…well. I just hope whatever our parents are planning, they pull it off. _

**June 1996 / 16 years old**

Pansy leans against the door to her mother’s dressing room, watching as she paints her face – a dab of rouge, a suggestion of gold shimmer about the eyes. Her black lace dress rustles from its hanger over the tall, gilt-framed mirror. She doesn’t really know why she’s here, but her father is in prison without a trial and she doesn’t really want to speak to Ophelia with her convictions and her certainty, and Gwithian is, as expected, too busy.

“Mrs Malfoy wants me to go and stay at the Manor in August, before school starts,” Pansy hears herself say. She watches her mother brush perfume onto her wrists and throat, pin on her gold and emerald dragon earrings. Why her mother is going out when the world is shattering about their ears is beyond her. “I’m going to have to meet the Dark Lord, and I…I know Father says I met him when I was a baby but it’s just different. I’m nervous.”

“Mmhm,” her mother says, and Pansy bites her lip hard enough to draw blood _._ She’s not listening. She never listens.

“Draco got me pregnant,” she says, loud and clear, digging her nails into her palms. “You’re going to be a grandmother.”

“That’s nice, darling.”

There’s a lump in her throat and she takes a deep, wobbly breath. She knows better than to hope, doesn’t know why she gave in to the weakness of it tonight.

“Why I do bother?” she murmurs to herself, and leaves her mother to her preparations.

**December 1993 / 13 years old**

The large ballroom at Malfoy Manor is full of chatter and jewel-coloured dress-robes and the smell of spiced wine and the burning, perfumed Yule log. Pansy eases her way around the edge of the dancefloor, careful not to spill any of her punch on her embroidered cream skirts, remembering to keep her chin up and her shoulders down. She can see the boys on the other side of the room through the whirling dancers – she’d danced with Draco first, and then Theo, and even Vince had sidled up to ask her and when she’d said yes, turned out to be a surprisingly good dancer, spinning her around and showing off. She grins at the thought of it, breathes in the glitter and the glamour. Despite everything she has to remember it’s quite nice to be back here, to be in a pretty dress and eavesdropping on everyone after a cold and Dementor-infested term at Hogwarts.

She’s passed an intent conversation about Sirius Black and his break-in at Hogwarts – some scathing opinions of Professor Dumbledore which come as zero surprise – then a few ladies talking about a St Mungo’s fundraiser, and then a discussion about some attempt at curing lycanthropy, but really nothing salacious, secretive, or all that interesting. She’ll just have to try harder. She pauses beside Astoria, who is wearing pale blue and watching her sister dance with Theo.

“Hello,” she says to Pansy, blushing. Pansy finds a smile for her. Usually the hierarchy means she doesn’t bother acknowledging Astoria – especially since she was sorted into Ravenclaw – but she’s more bearable than Daphne and from here Pansy is very close to where Daphne and Astoria’s grandmother – Melisende Lestrange – is holding court over a gaggle of younger women.

“Enjoying the party?” Pansy asks, and pretends to listen to Astoria’s answer but really angles her body just a little bit to make out what Melisende Lestrange is saying.

“That _Parkinson_ woman, really, would you look at her,” Melisende Lestrange says, and Pansy follows her gaze to where her mother is hanging onto Gaius Selwyn’s arm in a slightly over-familiar fashion. Her father is nowhere to be seen, which probably means he’s smoking on the terrace with Lucius Malfoy and some of the other gentlemen. “Could you get more brazen? First of all she steals Tristan Parkinson from my daughter, as if a slut from Venezuela would make a better wife than my Artemisia, and now she’s after poor Gaius!”

“And the little one has her claws in the Malfoy heir,” one of the other women points out, and Pansy’s stomach hollows. They’re talking about _her._

“My granddaughters didn’t even stand a chance,” Melisende Lestrange says.

“It’s a crying shame,” a third woman agrees. “Daphne would have been perfect for Draco Malfoy, just look at her.”

“Like mother like daughter,” a fourth adds. “That’s the problem with marrying out.”

“Of course,” Melisende Lestrange heaves a sigh. “But a bracelet isn’t binding. Daphne’s a lovely girl, she’ll try her best.”

Daphne is still spinning blissfully around the dancefloor, lips parted and hair half loose down her back. Theo looks like he can’t believe his luck. Abruptly, Pansy puts a hand to her mouth, tries to choke down the bile.

“Are you alright?” Astoria asks, eyes wide and blue, and Pansy wonders how much of this she knows, how much she just heard.

“It’s just a bit stuffy in here,” Pansy says quickly. “I’m going for some air. Enjoy the party.”

She’s gone before Astoria has a chance to answer and just about makes it out of the ballroom before she begins to run through the halls of Malfoy Manor, down the corridor to the entrance hall and out into the formal gardens, the cold stinging against her skin and the stars glimmering above her head. She takes in a deep breath of freezing air, settles down onto the balustrade surrounding the fish pond and trails her fingers through the water. One of the albino peacocks screams, and she can still hear the chatter of the party, feels her ribs closing in like seeking fingers, breathes again.

She knows the older ladies don’t like her mother. She’s been keeping tabs on her mother’s letters to Gaius Selwyn for years. There’s a difference between knowing both of those things and hearing them gossiped about at a party. There’s a difference between seeing Artemisia Greengrass’s mouth pucker at the sight of a bracelet to hearing Melisende Lestrange talk about getting Draco for Daphne. She presses her face into her hands.

Eventually, there are footsteps crunching on the gravel paths and Pansy looks up to see Narcissa Malfoy emerge between the hedges. She’s dressed in dark blue, peppered with silver sequins and embroidery, and her light hair is twisted into a chignon. The diamond choker at her throat sparkles in the light from both their wands.

“I saw you leave,” she says before Pansy has a chance to apologise for running out. “Is everything alright?”

Pansy shrugs. Narcissa Malfoy settles herself onto the balustrade too. “Shrugging isn’t ladylike,” she says. “Don’t do it. How many times have I told you?”

“I’m sorry,” Pansy says. Then, “I overheard Melisende Lestrange talking about my mother. And me.”

She doesn’t know what she expects of this confession – likely for Narcissa Malfoy to be cold and unsympathetic like she usually is, but to Pansy’s great surprise Narcissa Malfoy tips her head back and laughs. “Oh that woman has _never_ been able to get over a grudge. She’s been singing the same tune for fifteen years and we’re all quite sick of it.”

“We’re…”

“Grudges are only useful to a point, Pansy,” Narcissa says, suddenly gentle. Pansy restrains the urge to stare, to wonder what’s come over her. “Artemisia Lestrange had a dead father and two brothers in prison. Your mother brought your father a lot of money and your very well-connected uncle. Which would you have chosen?”

“My mother.”

“Exactly. And anyway, the match would not have gone ahead if your grandparents weren’t in full agreement.”

Pansy pauses, turns this over. “She said she’d told Daphne to try and get in between Draco and I.”

Narcissa huffs. “Use your brain, Pansy, I know you have one. Do you think Lucius and I would throw over all the advantage a formal alliance with your family has brought for a pretty face?”

“When you put it like that…” Pansy murmurs, and finds herself smiling. When she looks up, Narcissa is smiling too.

“This is how it works. The things that matter are connections, money, blood, and advantage. Some people win, some people lose. We’re all trying to get ahead.” She pauses. “You’ll be working out the same for your own sons one day.”

“What if I don’t choose right?”

“Well,” Narcissa meets her eyes, “it’s how it goes, I suppose. I wasn’t so sure of you to begin with. But I think in a few years, when you’ve grown up a bit, you’ll make Draco a fine wife.”

Pansy breathes out all of her panic and on impulse, reaches out to hug Narcissa. “Thank you, Mrs Malfoy,” she says against net and tulle and sequins. After a second, she feels Narcissa’s ringed hand settle on her head, gently push her away.

“Come on,” Narcissa says. “Let’s go and show Melisende and her sycophants a united front, shall we?”


	3. three

**July 1996 / 16 years old**

“I think my mother’s leaving for Venezuela,” Pansy says. Ophelia blinks at her.

“That sounds very permanent. Why leaving? Are you going too?”

Pansy sighs. “I’ve got school, so no. But I saw Gwithian packing the boys’ stuff, so they’ll probably go too.”

“Huh,” Ophelia says. “Interesting.”

“I don’t think I’m surprised,” Pansy continues after a moment. “Not really.”

“I don’t think I am either,” Ophelia shrugs, adjusts her hijab. “Make sure you’ve got a bag packed too.”

“To go with her?”

“No,” Ophelia says. “To get out, if you need to. Pack enough for your husband too, and plan your escape routes. You should always have an escape route.”

Pansy rests her chin on her hand. “It’ll give me something to do, I guess.” She pauses. “I think Draco’s family have a castle somewhere in Yorkshire. He mentioned it once, years ago.”

“I think I remember a Malfoy castle in Yorkshire too,” Ophelia hums. “My brother went to stay there a few times. That’s a good start. Let’s think of some other bolt-holes.”

**May 1997 / 17 years old**

When she tumbles, breathless, into the Hospital Wing, Draco is still unconscious and Madam Pomfrey is dribbling something out of a small brown bottle onto raised, ragged cuts across his chest and shoulders.

“What happened?” she demands, forgetting all of her manners. “Blaise said…”

Professor Snape looks over to her. His lip curls as usual upon being confronted with a student. “Mr Malfoy had an altercation with Mr Potter. Mr Potter used a dark curse of some sort and…”

“I am going to _kill_ him.” Pansy’s head is spinning, she draws her wand and is about to turn when Professor Snape’s hand closes on her wrist, tugs the wand out of her grasp.

“You will do no such thing, Miss Parkinson. Stay here. I am handling the situation and I certainly do not need overwrought girlfriends making things more complicated. Have I made myself clear?”

Pansy nods jerkily, and Professor Snape pockets her wand. “I’ll have this sent back down to your dorm,” he says, and sweeps from the room, robes snapping behind him.

She settles herself down into a chair when Madam Pomfrey is done and waits, her eyes tracing over the red gouges. How it must have _hurt_! She takes a deep breath, digs her nails into her palm. Hospital Wing décor notwithstanding, this is exactly how it was over the summer sitting at Draco’s bedside with his mother, waiting for him to recover from taking the Dark Mark. Luckily his shirt is still on, luckily he’s taken to wearing a glamour over it most days. She doesn’t know what she’d do if the whole school found out that yes, Draco Malfoy is officially a Death Eater.

It’s been weird. He’s been distant all year, going off with Vince and Greg more often than not and leaving her alone. She’s followed him as best she can. She’s seen Potter following him about too, and they’ve both figured out that whatever Draco is doing it’s in that room on the seventh floor but she’s watched Potter try to get access, tried a few times herself but the castle is implacable and there’s no way she can lock-pick a stone wall. It boils her blood that she hasn’t been able to ferret out this secret, that the person she knows best in the world has managed to keep something this huge hidden from her. Ophelia might know how to get it out of him, but Pansy is loath to tell her about the war, is sure Ophelia would hate the Dark Lord. She doesn’t want to disappoint her, but knows that she wouldn’t abandon Draco for the world and he’s made his position quite clear.

After about an hour, Draco’s eyes flutter open and she leans forward, takes his hand in hers. “Hello,” she says, trying to keep her irritation out of her voice. “How are you feeling?”

He blinks at her. “Like absolute _shit._ What did Potter throw at me?”

“Professor Snape didn’t say. But you nearly bled out.”

“Professor Snape was here?”

“He’s the one who brought you to the Hospital Wing. He’s dealing with Potter now.”

“Oh for…I wish he wouldn’t _meddle._ ”

“Meddle in _what_?” Pansy asks and Draco makes a face like he didn’t realise he’d said anything out loud.

“Nothing.”

“It’s-”

“What are you doing here anyway?”

“What do you think I’m doing here? Waiting for you to wake up. Making sure you’re ok. The usual stuff one expects of a future spouse.”

“I don’t need you to fuss over me.”

Pansy recoils. “Believe you me, I am hardly in a mollycoddling mood.”

“What?

“You are such an idiot.”

“I’m really not in the mood for this. Either say what you want or get out.”

“Tell me what you’re trying to do.”

“Pansy-”

“I mean it. You’re killing yourself over whatever the hell it is and Merlin knows I don’t like Bell or Weasley but collateral damage isn’t a good thing, Draco. You’re only drawing attention to yourself.”

“You-”

“Of course I know it was you! I’ve known you and your penchant for dramatics our entire fucking lives! I’m certain Potter knows too, and it’s only luck that everyone doesn’t believe him!”

“Keep your voice down,” Draco hisses, struggling onto his elbows. “Merlin, Pansy.”

“Tell me.”

“Or what? It’s _my_ task.”

She waggles both of her bracelets in front of his face, the emeralds winking in the soft light of the sconces. “This means I’m your closest helper, Draco. We’re supposed to be a team.”

“No. We’re not.” His eyes come up to meet hers, icy cold, as grey as the North Sea. “This is mine, Pansy. I have to prove myself, prove my family’s loyalty. No-one else can help.”

“You’re going to get caught.”

“I’m not.”

“I have useful skills – I can pick locks, climb things, lipread…”

“That is nothing magic won’t do for me,” Draco rolls his eyes.

“And what if the magic _doesn’t_ work, huh?”

“Merlin, Pansy, why are you so desperate to get in the way? I said I don’t want your help, so stop fucking hovering and whining and asking! It’s not going to happen!”

Pansy stares at him, her chest a cavity where her heart used to be. “You little shit. How dare you-”

“No wonder no-one wants you around,” Draco says. The twist of his mouth is cruel. “Daph, Theo, your parents. I certainly don’t.”

The tears are sudden and burning and she’s on her feet before she even thinks about it, leaning over his bed.

“Next time I hope Potter does fucking do you in,” she says, close and spiteful, sees something flicker through his eyes, but pulls herself away and is gone before he can respond, storming out of the hospital wing and choking with the force of trying to keep her tears at bay. As soon as she gets into the dorm, she rips off both bracelets, hurls them into her trunk and makes it to her bed before she starts to cry.

*

Later, she bumps into Potter leaving the Great Hall.

“I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself,” she snarls at him, and he blinks behind those horrid spectacles, pushes his hand through his hair as if he didn’t nearly murder someone four hours ago.

“Oh leave off, Parkinson,” Granger says snidely from Potter’s other side. “He’s had enough of this.”

Pansy rounds on her. “He’s had enough? Oh poor baby! Did you get an ickle telling off and some little detentions from nasty Professor Snape? You nearly _killed_ Draco, totally unprovoked! You deserve to be fucking _expelled_.”

“It was _not_ unprovoked,” Weasley interjects. His face is bright red.

“You weren’t _there_ ,” Pansy snaps. “Are you calling Professor Snape a liar?”

“So what if I am?” Weasley has gone toe to toe with her, and she resists the urge to hit him despite how much bigger he is than her. She doesn’t care. “You’re _all_ lying Death Eaters. Your father having a nice time in Azkaban?”

She does, then, slaps Ronald Weasley hard across the face. “Don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.”

“Ow! Merlin!”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Granger demands. Her hand is on her wand.

“Nothing that isn’t wrong with all of you too,” Pansy steps back. “Our side just don’t hide behind pretences.”

“We’re not _pretending,_ ” Potter finally snaps. “It was fucking accident, Parkinson. I didn’t know what the spell did.”

“Like it matters,” she spits, and pushes through them, ramming her shoulder hard into Potter’s. “Eat shit, all of you.”

**July 1997 / 17 years old**

Despite the time of year, Malfoy Manor is cold and dark and miserable. Pansy stands on the front steps with Draco’s hand at her waist, waiting to welcome their fathers home from Azkaban. She adjusts the skirts of her plum day dress, glances up at Draco’s carefully blank face. He’s trying to keep his shoulders settled but she can see the tension in them. On his other side, Narcissa Malfoy is a vision in mint-green but there are faint circles under her eyes that no amount of potion can wipe away. She’s made more of an effort today than she has for the whole month Pansy has been staying with them; Pansy doesn’t blame her. It _has_ been exhausting since the Dark Lord decided to take up residence here, and all Pansy is doing is trying to stay invisible and find out as much as she can. She doesn’t have to keep the household running and the Dark Lord appeased.

There are a series of loud cracks, and Pansy narrows her eyes into the mist. Footsteps, crunching on the gravel. Several figures become apparent, and then more and more – Pansy can see fifteen, sixteen. Lucius Malfoy is at their head, still in prison robes and looking gaunt and hollowed out but he musters a smile for them as he strides out ahead of the rest, mounts the steps.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she hears him murmur to Narcissa, kissing her, and then turns to accept Draco’s welcome-home handshake, to kiss the top of Pansy’s head. His eyes are very cold, colder than they ever were before, and that is _saying_ something. When she flicks her eyes over his shoulder she can see her own father, grey-faced and leaning heavily on Antonin Dolohov. “Where’s the Dark Lord?”

“He’s on business with Bella,” Narcissa says, her mouth curling. “He’ll be back tonight.”

Everyone, Pansy thinks, recognises the slight. Lucius Malfoy’s brows draw down, and he says something to his wife with his head angled away from Pansy so she can’t make out what it is. Narcissa tucks her hand into his elbow and leads him inside.

“Come on,” Draco says.

“I’ll just be a moment,” Pansy says, and Draco nods, distracted, turns to follow them. She descends the steps until she’s standing in front of her father and Dolohov, looks into his eyes. He blinks at her. His hair is uncharacteristically short, and she can see a red stain running down the side of his neck.

“Hello? Who are you?”

She swallows. “Daddy, it’s me. Pansy.”

“You’ve got the same name as my daughter.” He gives her a lopsided attempt at a smile. “She’s nearly one, you know, is just walking. Such a clever little girl.”

She doesn’t know what to say to this, doesn’t know how to react. Her father’s never been the most demonstrative but to not recognise her at _all_ …she glances at Dolohov.

“He was hit with something at the Department of Mysteries,” Dolohov says, roughly. “They don’t know what it is, couldn’t be bothered to find a cure.”

“Right,” Pansy says weakly, takes a breath. She can’t break down here or now. “Thank you.”

Dolohov grunts. She goes inside, her brogues clicking on the stonework, her legs wobbling with every step. Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy are nowhere to be seen, but Draco is talking to Clovelly, the head house-elf, something about rooms and baths. She walks up to him, slides an arm around him and ignores the way he stiffens as she presses her lips to his cheek.

“I’m just going upstairs to rest. I think I might be catching a chill.”

“Of course, darling,” Draco says, straightening, mask firmly in place for the exhausted men and women coming through the front door. “I’ll send one of the house elves up with a warm drink for you.”

“Lovely,” she says, kisses him again and turns to make her way up the staircase. In the safety of the guest room, she sits down on the bed and stares at herself in the mirror opposite, takes several slow, deep breaths. She’s known that she’s on her own for years. It’s nothing new, nothing surprising that all her best advice comes from her usually-cold mother-in-law-to-be and a portrait. It’s a punch to the gut to remember that her mother is living it up in Caracas, to stand in front of her father and not be recognised at all.

She pleads sick for dinner and the meeting afterwards, can’t face down all these people, can’t face down Bellatrix Lestrange and the Dark Lord and smile and be pleasant and invisible. She wants to be seen. She wants to throw chairs and rip rooms about and curse the smiles from people’s faces. It’s a dangerous mood to be in. Better to stay hidden.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Narcissa says when she calls to check on Pansy between courses, glittering in her finery. She puts cool fingers against Pansy’s cheek. “Nasty business.”

“It’s a war,” Pansy murmurs, fisting her hands in her skirt. “Wars have casualties.”

When she looks up, she catches a ghostly flicker of sadness darting across Narcissa’s face. “They do indeed,” then, “Clovelly will send you up some soup for if you’re hungry later.”

“Thank you,” Pansy says, finding her a smile. “Enjoy the rest of dinner.”

Later, she pulls on a jumper of Draco’s that she liberated from his trunk years ago, applies sticking charms to her hands and climbs out of her bedroom window, pausing for a moment with her feet on a small ledge, looking out at the moonlit grounds. The first thing she checks whenever she’s staying here is how to climb from whichever room Clovelly puts her in to Draco’s, so it’s the work of a few moments to scramble up the stonework, across the roof, and down the guttering on the other side, tapping his still-lit window open with her wand and tumbling inside.

“Merlin!” Draco shouts, scrabbling upright. He’s still fully-dressed, looks like he’s been crying. She picks herself up off his rug, mutters the counter charm and wipes her dusty hands on her skirt. “What the…how…”

She knows he’s got silencing charms all up around this room, grins hollow and empty. He doesn’t match it. “I told you, months ago. I climb things.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. You weren’t listening. You said it wasn’t useful.”

He sticks his nose in the air in the way that means he’s about to be an asshole. “It isn’t. Who said I wanted you clambering into my room at one in the morning like some creepy human spider?”

“I don’t care what you want,” Pansy says, sticking her wand back up her sleeve and wandering over to his desk, pouring them both generous tumblers of firewhiskey, the amber refracting through the cut crystal. She settles down on the other side of his bed, and he accepts the drink, pushes himself back against the headboard. “Did I miss much?”

“Did she miss much?” Draco mimics, then sighs. “They’re sending your father back to your mother, in Venezuela. And our Muggle Studies professor was eaten by Nagini.”

Pansy shudders. “Anything else?”

“Yaxley thinks Potter’s going to be moved on the thirtieth. Snape the twenty-seventh. The Dark Lord believes Snape. He took Father’s wand for the job.”

Draco’s voice holds as much interest as someone reciting a shopping list. Pansy takes a big gulp of her whisky, feels it trace a molten line down her throat. It’s probably best that her father is being sent away. It’s not like the Dark Lord has any space for a soldier with significant brain trauma; at least he’s still going to be alive. She wonders what her mother will think of getting her husband back, assumes it won’t be anything good. After a while, she asks: “How did we get here?”

“What?”

“How did we get to a place whether neither of us are surprised by the fact a woman was just eaten by a snake? How does that happen?”

“Why are you feeling so bloody philosophical tonight?”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t know. It all just happened, didn’t it?”

“We chose some of it, too,” she says, looking down at his arm. He always keeps the Mark covered, even when he doesn’t have to. She wonders whether he regrets it or not, knows that by now he’s not going to tell her. So much for being best friends against the world.

“Is it a choice when the other option is death?”

“Potter and his groupies would say yes.”

“Since when have you cared what Potter thinks?”

Pansy shrugs, refuses to be stung by the tone of his voice. He’s softened since their screaming match in the Hospital Wing, and when she’d come to the Manor after Dumbledore’s death, had seen him pale and shaking, had overheard the Dark Lord talking to Bellatrix about the test she’d forgiven him, just a little. Since her arrival, he’s always positioned himself between her and the Dark Lord. She’s taken it in lieu of an apology. “I don’t. They’re just the obvious opposites.”

“It’s survival,” Draco says quietly, and when she looks up his grey eyes are momentarily soft. “Choice is a luxury when you’re trying to survive.”

“Yeah,” Pansy says, traces a pattern on the quilt. Ophelia would be on Potter’s side in this, she thinks. But then Ophelia’s loyalty was always to a cause as well as a person. Pansy doesn’t give a shit about the cause, never has.

“We should sleep,” Draco says.

“Can I stay?”

“If you want.” His voice is indifferent and he drains his drink in one, takes her glass. “Steal another jumper if you must.”

She potters into his bathroom to get changed and wipe off her make-up, braid her hair. By the time she comes back out, he’s fast asleep and she curls up on the other side of the bed. Maybe in another life this would have been their bed, this would have been real. How did it end up like this? She doesn’t think she’ll ever know the answer.

**September 1997 / 17 years old**

_We’re back at Hogwarts. We have Death Eaters as teachers now, Professor Snape is in charge. I found out that they’re going to start reading all the mail in case we’re in communication with undesirables, and I don’t want them to read my letters to you. They can’t know what I’m really thinking. I have to prioritise my safety – and Draco’s too._

_I don’t know if or when I’ll get to write again, but look after yourself, do not engage in any more heroics, and kick ass. Your letters have meant a lot. _

_Love, Pansy xx._

*

She’s not expecting a response from Yang Jiahao so when the owl drops a tiny brown-paper packet into her lap at breakfast mid-September, she nearly upends her coffee in surprise.

“Jewellery?” Daphne asks as Pansy pulls a green velvet bag from the wrappings, glancing at the two bracelets clinking on Pansy’s wrists. Her own sapphire bracelet from Theo jangles obnoxiously. Pansy glances up at her and back down, communicating clearly that she doesn’t deem Daphne’s question worth an answer.

Inside the bag is a faint silver chain with a tiny paper crane looped onto the end that sparkles and blinks its black ink eye. There is also a note bearing two lines of Mandarin characters, and the translation charm shimmers: _just in case you need an escape. Twist the portkey off the chain and say the name of my school. Please stay safe. YJ xx._ The lump in her throat is sudden and painful and she wishes she could write back; she wishes she could tell him how much this means to her.

“Really,” Daphne tries again, “it’s rather improper to be accepting jewellery from anyone other than Draco.”

“Really,” Pansy mimics, “it’s rather foolish to be commenting on things you don’t understand.”

Daphne’s fingers twitch for her wand, and Pansy gives her a smile that’s all teeth. Narcissa Malfoy isn’t here to complain.

“I’ll see you in Transfiguration,” she says, standing and striding down the Great Hall, ignoring the way the chatter dies down as she passes. She makes it back to her dorm and chokes down the urge to cry, pulls the chain over her head and tucks the charm down the front of her robes.

*

She doesn’t know what, exactly, she was expecting of Hogwarts under Snape and the Carrows. Maybe she was being silly. She doesn’t know. It wasn’t this.

“Get on with it, Miss Parkinson,” Alecto Carrow slimes into her ear. Pansy takes a deep breath and tries to raise her wand but she can’t. Her hand is shaking. Neville Longbottom is trying his hardest not to look scared and failing miserably.

“For fuck’s sake,” Alecto says and pushes Pansy aside. Pansy stumbles and trips over, lands hard on the cold flagstones. “Crucio!”

Longbottom drops with a scream. Pansy forces herself to look – at his agonised face, at the way his spine arches. Alecto is laughing as he writhes, and Pansy thinks she’s going to be sick. After what feels like an eternity, Alecto lifts the spell.

“You have to put some force into it, Miss Parkinson,” she says. “You have to _mean_ it.”

Longbottom is gasping wetly, curled in on himself. Pansy tears her eyes away. She knows this happens at Revels and amongst the Death Eaters, has never seen it herself. This is a boy she grew up either ignoring or hexing, a stupid kid who melted his cauldron more times than she could count, uninteresting at the best of times and irritating at the worst. She doesn’t like him, never has, but there’s a difference between dislike and discrimination. There’s a difference between a stinging hex and torture. She thought she could get away with being neutral, curses herself for her naivete.

She peels herself off the floor. Her hands are grazed and she’s going to have horrible bruises up her thigh where she landed.

“Yes, Professor,” she murmurs.

“I’ll sign you up in October, give you a couple of weeks to practise,” Alecto says. “Spiders are good. As Mr Malfoy’s bride-to-be it’s best that you get this down sooner rather than later. Go on, get back to the common room before curfew. You too, Longbottom, unless you’re already itching for another taste.”

*

Four days later she gets back to her room to find both Greengrass sisters hovering outside the door.

“Why the hell are you here?” she asks Daphne, who bites her lip in an annoyingly perfect picture of hesitation. “And who let her into Slytherin?”

Astoria adjusts her blue and bronze tie self-consciously, one hand drifting to pat the neat golden braid crown wrapped around her head. She hasn’t been coming to parties much anymore, keeps to her house at school, but sometimes in the Great Hall or the library Pansy will glance up to find Astoria looking contemplatively in her direction.

“I did,” Daphne says. Her cheeks are flushed and she meets Pansy’s hostile stare head on. “We need to talk to you. Astoria had an idea.”

Pansy looks at them both, at the shadows under Daphne’s eyes, at the set of Astoria’s jaw. 

“You’d better come in, then,” she says, turning to unlock the door. She slings her satchel at the bottom of her bed, gestures for them to take the small green sofa. If she were doing this properly she’d have refreshments, tea, but this is a business meeting, this isn’t for pleasure. Not that she’d be spending any time for pleasure with Daphne Greengrass if she had any say in the matter, but that’s beside the point.

“Well,” Pansy says. “Hurry up. I haven’t got all day.”

“We don’t want to torture anyone,” Astoria blurts.

“You think anyone does?”

“Crabbe, Goyle, Millie,” Daphne says, bluntly, and it’s the most real and direct Pansy has ever seen her; her cornflower blue eyes are narrow, focussed, and she’s got this little dent between her eyebrows and that about ten percent of Pansy’s brain has a sudden, intrusive fascination with. “The Carrow twins in Astoria’s year. Marcus Flint’s little sister. Even Theo doesn’t appear to care all that much.”

“Point,” Pansy says, refusing to think about what that annoying ten percent of her brain is intent on noticing. “But literally how can we do anything? Refusing will just attract more attention, and won’t stop those Gryffindor idiots practically signing up for detentions.”

“You can’t say…” Daphne starts.

“Merlin, it’s not like I want to. I’m just facing facts.”

“See that’s the thing.” Astoria says all in a rush. “We don’t refuse. We take as many detentions as we can.”

“What?” Pansy stares at her.

“We fake it.” Astoria fiddles with her hair again, and then takes a deep breath, looks up and meets Pansy’s eyes. “I worked out a way to fake the Cruciatus curse. The Carrows only hover if you’re not doing well enough. If you point your wand at the wall and they scream – voila. No actual torture, and the Carrows don’t realise.”

“You…but how would you communicate that? We can’t exactly go around saying ‘remember to scream!’”

“A code, or something. Word of mouth is useful.”

“Ok,” Daphne says, “what code?”

“We’re doing this?” Pansy asks.

“With or without you,” Astoria says, and Pansy wonders at how meek little Astoria Greengrass has grown up to be so sharp and smart, at how it took a war for Daphne to use her spine.

“Something simple,” she says, and catches herself on Astoria’s grin. She hears Narcissa Malfoy’s voice echoing in her head, snaps her fingers. “Got it. _This is how it works_.”

“Huh?” Daphne says and Pansy rolls her eyes.

“Like we’re explaining how the detention works,” Astoria nods. “Clever.”

“So what next? We…”

“Don’t go too heavy on the sign-ups,” Pansy says. “I mean, I’ve certainly been reluctant. It would look suspicious if we’re suddenly their most enthusiastic junior torturers.”

“True,” Astoria says, “but that means we’re abandoning a lot of people to actual torture.”

“What if we tell the others?” Daphne asks.

“Do not tell Theo,” Pansy orders. “No way. Or Crabbe, Goyle, Millie.”

“They’re the worst,” Astoria shudders. “I can’t believe Millie actually enjoys herself. I had no idea.”

“Blaise is trustworthy,” she continues, electing not to tell them about Millie’s home life, about the sudden headiness of gaining power when you once had none. “Rosaline is as well. I caught her crying about it in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Maybe Draco.”

Daphne glares. “You’d trust an actual Death Eater over Theo?”

“Yes.”

“Just because you’re practically engaged to him doesn’t mean he won’t dob us in.”

“Pot calling cauldron black, Daphne, Draco’s all front. Not sure I could say the same for Theo.”

“Not exactly solving the problem here,” Astoria interjects. “Much as it amuses me to watch you two squabble over which of your boyfriends is more heinous.”

“Watch it, Greengrass.”

“Just saying,” Astoria meets Pansy’s eyes steadily, and Pansy feels something warm and giddy begin to unfurl in her chest. “Detention victims aren’t allowed in the Hospital Wing, are they?”

“They need access to pain potions,” Pansy says, catching her drift. “Yeah. So if we were to perhaps brew some of our own, they wouldn’t have to go to the Hospital Wing…”

“That would be good. Though we’d need ingredients and a potioneer.”

“Well between them I’m sure Daphne and Blaise can distract Slughorn. I only need twenty minutes to get out what I need,” Pansy says. “As for a potioneer…”

“No,” Daphne interrupts. “No way.”

“He’s the best in our year, especially now that Granger’s not here,” Pansy argues.

“We just had this discussion, Parkinson. I don’t trust him.”

“But you trust me.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Daphne’s mouth is a sulky pout – in the candlelight she looks like an Old Master painting, oil paint and perfection and worth millions of Galleons.

Pansy thinks of Draco and his walls, and his coming out, and his screams when he was Marked, and the flicker of fear in his face anytime anyone brings up the Dark Lord. The time he’d met her on the steps the first time she’d come to the Manor after Dumbledore’s death. She’d hugged him for all the watching eyes, pressed a kiss to his mouth. He’d flinched, hard.

“Then trust me,” she says, as fierce as she can. “He won’t tell.”

*

“Why in Merlin’s name are we patrolling down here, Pansy?” Draco asks. “Literally no-one comes down here. I don’t think they’ve used these dungeons since the thirteenth century. They’re certainly smelly enough.”

“We still haven’t found where the DA are hiding,” Pansy tells the back of his head, forcing him down the dark slippery steps. Of course, everyone knows they’re in that hidden place on the seventh floor but they all pretend not to. Her stomach is a fistful of nerves. “And if we’re down here, we’re not dancing attendance on the Carrows, so…”

He huffs a sigh, but keeps walking. “Let’s get this over with. I have homework.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Pansy lets him get away with that one, following him into the cell where Daphne is waiting and easing the door shut behind them. He hears it, spins to face her.

“What the…”

Light flickers into existence from Daphne’s wand, turning her face into a ghostly, shadowy landscape. Draco starts so hard Pansy hears his teeth clash together.

“We have something to talk to you about.” When it looks like Draco isn’t going to respond, she continues, “Namely, the fact that we’ve got all the supplies for pain potions and no-one to brew them.”

“What?”

“I know you don’t like what the Carrows are doing.” Pansy advances, and he doesn’t move, but she stops before she can get too close, thinks better of touching him. One wrong move and he might disintegrate from shock. “Daphne and I are trying to alleviate it.”

“This,” Draco swallows. “This is very dangerous.”

Not an outright rejection. She can work with this.

“Not as dangerous as faking the Cruciatus Curse in detentions,” Daphne pipes up, and Pansy shoots her a death glare over Draco’s shoulder.

“No,” Draco says, “you…the Carrows.”

“We haven’t actually done it yet, but we think it’ll work.” Pansy shrugs.

“You are…this is so _beyond_ reckless...”

“It isn’t, actually. It should be quite safe if we’re smart about it.”

He’s staring at them. Pansy can see his resolve crumbling, waits and waits. He’s already on the edge – all she’s got to do is figure out the right way to push.

“What if we get caught?” he asks, eventually.

“They’re torturing first years,” she snaps back. “Does that matter?”

“There are more ways to resist than scrawling graffiti everywhere and hexing people you shouldn’t,” Daphne adds.

Silence. Draco fidgets for a long, terrible moment and then says, “you’re both unbelievable,” and the relief is as heady as adrenaline, roaring to her head.

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes,” he says roughly. “Merlin knows why. But you – especially you, Pansy – had better work on your Occlumency because if the Dark Lord or my father or Aunt Bella gets even a hint of this then we’re done for. Those detentions will look like child’s play.”

“Acceptable terms,” Pansy says.

“What’s Occlumency?” Daphne says.

“Read a fucking book,” Pansy snipes back, and Draco rolls his eyes.

“Merlin, stop squabbling. When do you want me to start?”

“Soon,” Pansy tells him. “Preferably this weekend.”

“Right,” Draco says, and then pushes past her, hauls the door open, and leaves. They hear his footsteps echoing up the stairs.

“Well, consider me proved right,” Pansy says, turning to follow him but being stopped by Daphne’s hand on her arm. Her eyes are huge and glinting in the darkness.

“Are we doing the right thing?”

“Well don’t get cold feet now, Greengrass, Merlin,” Pansy says roughly.

“I’m not, I just…”

Pansy turns back and gets right up into Daphne’s face, takes her by the shoulders, uncaring of how hard she’s pressing, of the way Daphne flinches, trying not to notice how soft and warm Daphne’s arms are beneath her hands or her perfume or the way her breath mists across Pansy’s face. Pansy can’t decide if she wants to shake her or kiss her more. She settles for digging her fingers in just a little bit more, hoping she’ll leave a mark.

“We don’t have to settle for our birth-rights, not if they involve this. Our parents made their choices. We don’t have to blindly follow along,” she laughs without humour, “and anyway, we’re pureblood women, right? Being two-faced is our greatest strength. If you can face down your grandmother or Narcissa Malfoy then the Carrows don’t stand a chance, ok?”

“Ok,” Daphne whispers.

“Ok,” Pansy says.

*

When Pansy follows Alecto into the detention, she finds Neville Longbottom with one wrist chained to the wall and a cut above his eye. He tilts his chin up and meets her gaze.

“Back again, Longbottom?” she asks coolly.

“He was caught hexing Headmaster Snape,” Alecto says, gleeful. “Do you need any help, Miss Parkinson?”

Pansy adjusts her Head Girl badge, pretends to consider, taps her wand against her thigh and looks up at Alecto through her lashes. “I’d like to have a go on my own, Professor,” she says, doing her best impression of Daphne.

“Oh,” Alecto says. “Good. Well, I’ll be down the hall if you need me.”

“Thank you,” Pansy says and watches as the door clangs shut, forcibly holds back a sigh of relief. She turns to Longbottom. “This is how it works.”

“Don’t need your Death Eater mentor anymore, Parkinson?” he jeers, but she can see the thud of his pulse in his neck, the sweat trickling down his forehead.

She ignores him. “You’ve got four minutes under Cruciatus. You will scream-”

“- of course I will, you’ve obviously never been under it-”

“And if you don’t, it will go worse for you. Have I made myself understood?”

Longbottom glowers at her, and she raises her wand, takes a deep breath, aims it at the wall several feet from Longbottom’s head and shouts, “Crucio!”

He stares at her in shock, opens his mouth to say something. Pansy interrupts before he can fuck it all up. “Scream, damn you! Crucio!”

He gets the message and starts to yell, drops to the floor and rolls around in the slime down there. Pansy keeps her wand aimed at the wall, her eye on the door, and when the four minutes is up moves quickly to him, pulling out the vials of pain potion Draco had left tucked onto her bookshelf. She presses them into Longbottom’s hand.

“For those who don’t get one of us,” she hisses.

“Merlin, Parkinson,” he whispers back, “what the…you’re on our side? The DA-”

“No, no,” she snaps. “I don’t want to know. I can’t know. Use your tiny brain.”

“But why?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” she says, hearing footsteps and straightening. “I’ll find a way to get you the next batch.”

The door opens and Alecto appears.

“Pathetic,” Pansy says, pretending to kick Longbottom, who is curled up again and panting. “I think he might have wet himself.”

“Good work,” Alecto says.

“Thank you,” Pansy runs a hand through her hair, affects a smile, and imagines ripping Alecto’s throat out. “I practised on the spiders in my room like you said to, Professor.”

“It certainly shows.” Alecto is grinning, displaying her horrible teeth. “Ten points to Slytherin, Miss Parkinson. Come with me and we’ll get you signed up for some more.”

**April 1998 / 18 years old**

The year is almost too much for her brain to process. It fractures around her like a mosaic and she has to be careful not to cut herself moving from shard to shard. Fake-torturing someone to sneering at them in the hallway. Blaise’s mouth on hers, his body against hers, to holding Draco’s hand over dinner. Simpering at Alecto Carrow to badmouthing her with Astoria and Rosaline and sometimes Daphne in between shots of firewhiskey. Surviving, day by day.

“I never thought I’d miss school as-was,” Blaise says once, tracing his finger across a scar on Pansy’s hip where she was bitten by a Grindylow as a child.

“Missing Trelawney? Hagrid? Potter?” Pansy snipes.

“Missing harmless chaos,” Blaise hums. “And how boring it all was. _Merlin,_ I miss boredom.”

“Sometimes I do,” Pansy says, “but I actually quite like the adrenaline.”

“You _do_ keep pulling ridiculous schemes off,” Blaise agrees. “Terribly Gryffindor of you.”

“How _dare_ you,” Pansy laughs. “You’ll pay for that.”

“I look forward to it,” he says, and she pulls him down into another kiss. She’s trying not to let herself get attached, but Blaise is…well. At first he was a great distraction from both the constant low-level terror thrumming through her veins on any given day and also from the infuriating fact she suddenly can’t stop noticing Daphne. As the months have dragged on and he’s started to stay in her bed with her after sex instead of heading back to his dorm, she’s started to daydream about this being her life instead. About the war ending and marrying Draco. About Blaise getting to play the international gentleman of leisure he’s always claimed he wants, and really belonging to her. About Draco finding a lover of his own, about building a home, about getting to _live_ instead of surviving _._ She clutches it close to her chest in the small hours of the night and hopes she can wish it into reality.

When they all come back after Easter, everything has changed. They scare a bunch of third-year Gryffindors from the lead carriage, and climb in.

“Where’s Draco?” Blaise asks as it begins to move.

Daphne looks up. Theo’s arm is possessive around her waist. “Yeah,” she says, “I thought he was meeting us here.”

“He’s just doing a task for the Dark Lord,” Pansy says, feigning an airiness she doesn’t feel. “You know how it goes.”

“Oh,” Daphne says, uninterested, and goes back to whispering in Theo’s ear. Blaise gives Pansy a hard look and doesn’t say anything. Later, when he sneaks out to her room, he finds her pacing back and forth, nearly ready to rip her hair out.

“No I don’t know where he is,” she says before he can open his mouth. “I was only at the Manor for the first two weeks of the holiday, I was at Avebury for the rest.”

Blaise sits down on her bed, rests his elbows on his knees, pushes his hands into his hair.

“I’m…” Pansy says, swallows hard. She could say how scared she is, how she worries that Draco could be dead or locked up or have his soul taken by a Dementor or…anything, really. She could. She doesn’t. Blaise is probably having the same thoughts himself. She doesn’t need to say them out loud. “We’ve…there’s nothing we can do.”

“And if they’ve killed him?”

“I would know,” Pansy says, and lets him pull her into his lap. “I would know if he were dead.”

“Ok.” Blaise pauses, his face pressed against her neck. “Are you ok?”

“Do I look like I want to talk about it?”

“I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“Well, don’t,” she says. He takes the hint and kisses her instead.

*

When Draco does show up – six days later – it is without fanfare. He wheezes when he breathes and jumps at any sudden motion behind him and spends a lot of time staring into space.

“Good to have you back,” Blaise says loudly in the Entrance Hall, claps Draco on the back and ignores Draco’s flinch. “Need you to help run the fucking DA to the ground.”

They walk him to his dorm, the cabal of chosen ones, feared by those who don’t know about their con and mocked by those who do. Pansy tucks her arm into his, rests her head against his shoulder. She knows enough of the Cruciatus by now to have guessed what has happened, is about to open her mouth but Draco leans forward and puts his forehead against hers like they used to when they were kids.

“Don’t ask me to talk about it,” he says.

“Ok,” Pansy says, cups his face. “Ok. Whatever you need.”

He gives a tired sigh and shuts the door in her face. Blaise puts a hand on her elbow and she chokes away the feeling of helplessness.

“We’re going to make them pay,” she says. “They don’t get to get away with this.”

“No,” Blaise says. “They don’t.”

**May 1998 / 18 years old**

They stand in the hubbub of Kings Cross, Muggles rushing back and forth around them. They should have had a graduation ceremony, a ball followed shortly by the announcements of engagements, induction into society. Not this – silent and drained on the Hogwarts Express, watching the countryside whip by. Not this – few parents to greet them as they’d emerged from the barrier. Daphne and Astoria and Theo have already left, only Astoria sparing a glance back. Blaise had disappeared soon after with a careless shrug; Pansy’s heart had squeezed sharply, she wished he’d have thought to stay. Now it’s only Rosaline.

“You don’t have to wait,” she says, fidgeting with one of her braids. “I’m sure my brother won’t be long.”

“It’s not like I have anything else to do,” Pansy replies, and then softens, “you’re fourteen. You shouldn’t be here on your own.”

“You didn’t care about that at school.”

“You wanted to fight.”

“Yeah.” Her shoulders fold in on themselves just a little. “It feels wrong to be going home, doesn’t it?”

Pansy’s not going home, not back to Avebury Hall with its echoing, empty corridors and silent, judgemental rooms. The house in Chelsea is more manageable for one person, more central, though Merlin knows what she’ll do there.

“Yes,” Pansy says, softly. “Yes, it does.”

Rosaline doesn’t seem inclined to talk, but when her brother – a tall man with dark brown skin in a green dashiki – appears, she leans her head briefly against Pansy’s shoulder before she walks away. Pansy watches her go and feels her last strings to Hogwarts fall clean away.


	4. four

**October 1998 / 18 years old**

“Excuse me,” Pansy says, adjusting her green silk wrap, “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

She’s staring at Blaise, who is drunkenly draped across the divan in the window of her drawing room, collar open to reveal a good bit of chest, tie loose, hair a mess, eyes skidding all over the place as though he hasn’t been in this room many times before. A bottle of ancient firewhiskey dangles from his hand. It’s become quite a habit of his over the past few months to show up drunk at her London townhouse, and it usually ends up in her being dragged out clubbing or strip poker or just lots and lots of angry sex. It’s not like she cares: she’s not got a job, or a distraction; Draco’s in Azkaban; Narcissa is dead; Rosaline and Astoria are back at Hogwarts and Merlin knows that Theo and Daphne haven’t wanted to keep in contact. Rosaline writes letters sometimes which is sweet of her, sent a postcard from her trip to Nigeria to visit family, but really Blaise is the sole person who comes to see her. And now, this.

“I’m engaged,” he slurs, “To Daph.”

“She has an understanding with Theo.”

“Yeah, son of a dead Death Eater. Not exactly an advantage right now. Me, on the other hand,” he takes another swig of his drink, “filthy rich, handsome and charming, well-connected on the continent through my _many_ step-fathers. What’s not to love?”

“No,” Pansy says, shaking her head.

Blaise blinks. “No?”

“What about the war, about-”

He appears to not be listening. “We had the engagement ceremony. The wedding is next month. Mother’s gifted me a house on Lake Geneva for the occasion. I think Lord Byron stayed there once.”

“This _can’t_ be happening,” Pansy says, snatches his bottle and takes a long drink herself. Her hands are shaking. “Aren’t you even going to _try_ and get out of it?”

“The ceremony’s happened,” he repeats, with a flare of sudden temper. “And what’s wrong with Daphne?”

“We’ve never liked her.”

“ _You’ve_ never liked her.” Blaise eyes her. “What else would I do anyway? Marry _you_?”

Pansy feels her cheeks flame and Blaise snorts, puts his hands behind his head. “You’re not exactly advantageous either, not anymore.”

“Get out,” she says, low and furious.

He ignores her. “There’s a party tomorrow to celebrate at their house in Belgravia. Come if you want.”

“How _dare_ you.”

“How dare _I_?” Blaise is suddenly on his feet, looming over her. Pansy palms her wand. She’s smaller than he is, sure, but she’s sober and more vicious. She knows she could take him if it came to it. “I’m not doing anything different to you, Pansy. You were always going to marry Draco, keep me as your bit on the side. Don’t act so fucking righteous now that the tables are turned.”

“That is an entirely different situation and you know it.”

“No, it isn’t,” he says, and then he laughs, sudden, sways like he’s caught in a gale. “Look at us. We’re a fucking mess.”

“Get _out_ of my house.”

“The party starts at eight. Wear something pretty. You always do.”

“Fuck off,” Pansy snaps. “The pair of you fucking deserve each other, you absolute bastard.”

“Don’t be such a bitch, Parkinson,” Blaise says, but he’s swaying towards the door, crashes it open and slams it shut. She stares after him and then screams, overturns the sofa and collapses onto her rug, anger molten in her blood, ashes in her mouth. How could everything be going so wrong? How could this have happened? How has she lost such control of her life? She had everything planned, her inheritance weighed out, her future settled and now it’s all bricks and dusty hollow silence, now it’s nothing. She rolls onto her back and stares at the chandelier. What does she do? What the fuck does she do now?

*

She nearly goes to the party. She goes to a couture store and buys a horribly expensive pair of dress robes – tight-fitting black Chantilly lace with a high collar, funereal – and stands in the bathroom and shaves her head, one long stroke at a time. Afterwards she paints her face perfectly, shrugs on a velvet cloak against the cold and Apparates from Chelsea to Belgravia. She stands outside the door for a long while, staring in at the window and feeling ill thinking about Blaise cleaned up and achingly handsome, holding Daphne’s hand and smiling for the cameras when he’s seen Pansy at her weakest and most vulnerable.

After a while, she turns on her heel and starts to walk and before she’s even thinking about it is pushing her way into a Muggle pub, marching to the bar and ordering the first bottle she sees from the confused bartender. She drinks the first one too quickly, and the second. Several people try to buy her drinks and she glares them down, pulls her coat closer to hide her dress. Eventually she looks up to see that another woman has sat down two seats away, blonde braid crowns and yellow party dress, soft and golden and beautiful just like she always has been. Pansy hasn’t seen Astoria Greengrass since she left Hogwarts, doesn’t know why she hasn’t stayed in contact.

“Oh, great,” Pansy says around the lip of her glass. “A Greengrass. Just who I wanted to see.”

Astoria turns her head to look at Pansy along the bar. “Nice to see you too, Parkinson,” she says, calmly. Her cheeks have turned pink, and she looks like she could have stepped out of one of those Muggle movies Pansy has taken to watching for lack of anything else to do. “Unexpected, too. I didn’t realise you frequented Muggle pubs.”

“Didn’t want to run into anyone I knew,” Pansy says. “Obviously that didn’t work out so well for me.”

“Apologies for ruining your plans,” Astoria sighs.

“You’re underage.”

“Like you didn’t give me firewhiskey all last year, please, give me a break.”

“Fair,” Pansy says.

“I like your hair,” Astoria says after a moment. “Or lack thereof.”

“Thanks,” Pansy says, with a toothy smile. “I did it to piss off your sister. Sadly I didn’t make it in the door but it’s the thought that counts.”

“You were going to come to the party.”

“Blaise invited me.”

“That’s…shitty of him.”

“He only told me last night.” Pansy raises her glass. “Even shittier, I tell you.”

“Urgh,” Astoria groans. “I used to think he was a prick, but not as much of a prick as this. Seriously! Last night? After sleeping with you for months?”

“Last night, after sleeping with me for months, yes.” Pansy pauses. “Why are you out, anyway? And why aren’t you at school?”

“I’m not at school because of the party,” Astoria shrugs. “And I’m not at the party because I’m sick of being asked when _I’ll_ find myself a nice young man, and I’m sick of my sister’s simpering, and I’m, quite frankly, sick of Blaise and his antics. I’m even angrier with him now I’ve heard what he did to you.”

“Nice young men are in short supply,” Pansy agrees. “They’re either all disgraced or all too good for us Death Eater girls, eh?”

“I don’t want a man _at all,_ ” Astoria says, lifting her chin as though she’s expecting for Pansy to take it badly. Pansy shrugs.

“Good on you. They’re not worth it.”

“You’re…”

“You are not the first perfect pureblood child to come out to me, no. I am surprised but not. Do you know what I mean?”

“You are quite drunk but I think I get it. Also I knew Draco was gay.”

Pansy splutters. “How?”

“Being gay myself, I understand exactly what pining looks like. Merlin knows I’ve done enough of it.” She laughs. “He spent an awful long time staring at Potter. It wasn’t too hard to figure out.”

“Potter? He hated Potter.”

“Hated, wanted to fuck, what’s the difference?” Astoria shrugs. “I’m only saying what I saw.”

“Hey, sexy,” a voice suddenly says in Pansy’s ear. His breath is too close, and she groans, wishes she’d just worn something normal, wishes she hadn’t decided to come out looking hot. She’s got enough on her plate without Muggles trying to hit on her. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She’s about to say something horrible, but suddenly Astoria is scooting her barstool closer, pushing another one of those gross Muggle sparkling drinks in her direction. “I’m afraid my girlfriend’s spoken for,” she says, blandly, with a smile.

“Girlfriend?” Onion Breath asks. “What about a threesome?”

Astoria’s smile has gone all dangerous. “Even if we were interested in men, you really wouldn’t make the cut. Apologies. Try someone in your own league.”

The man is too shocked to do anything than walk away to the jeers of his friends, and Astoria gives Pansy a sly smile that sets something warm smouldering in her stomach. Pansy is lowkey impressed and says so.

“Men are gross as well as not being worth it,” Astoria says. Her leg is still brushing Pansy’s. “No offence. I know you like them and all.”

“I don’t like them much at the moment.”

Astoria’s face twists. “I’m not surprised.”

The world is slurring around Pansy’s eyes and that’s why she leans closer, slides a hand onto Astoria’s thigh. She doesn’t think she’s making up the way Astoria’s blush darkens, the way her eyes widen and slip downwards before she jerks them back up.

“You’re into men,” Astoria says, unsteady.

“I’m sure I could be persuaded not to be.”

“I’m not something to try out, Pansy.”

“Of course you’re not,” Pansy says. “I just think I might have been being very stupid, that’s all. I’m bad at secrets when it comes to my friends.”

Astoria’s breath hitches. “I can’t believe it took you nearly _seven years_ to notice.”

“I wasn’t looking out for it, so,” Pansy shrugs, meets her eyes. “Want to do something that will piss everyone off?”

Astoria’s mouth is very close to hers. “Alright. What you got?” 

**June 1995 / 15 years old**

“Oh. Hi. What are you doing down here?”

Pansy uncurls slightly from around the hot water bottle the house elves had brought her to see Draco materialise from the inky common room like a ghost.

“What are you doing here?” she frowns.

“I asked first.”

“Merlin, fine.” She sighs. “My period has decided that pain potions are beneath its notice. It’s surprisingly hard to sleep when your uterus is ripping itself apart.”

Draco grimaces, digs in the pocket of his robes and pulls out a big bar of chocolate. “Want company?”

“Yeah,” Pansy says, shifting over. He breaks off a big piece and hands it to her, slumping down and tipping his head back against the sofa cushions.

“Who knew periods and Dementors had anything in common,” he says.

Pansy barks a laugh, tips her head against his shoulder. She likes getting him alone. It’s the ultimate secret – Draco without his battlements, his guards. She cradles this close to her chest when they’re with the others. It’s proof that her Draco is still in there somewhere, hope that she keeps alive. Sometimes it gets difficult to remember.

“Why are you awake at 2am?” she asks the ceiling through a mouthful of chocolate. She feels his shoulder rise and fall under her head.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says eventually. “Just wondering what it’s going to be like at home.”

Wordlessly, Pansy reaches out to curl her fingers through his. Only an idiot would think that the world hadn’t shifted irreversibly three nights ago, and they are far from idiots. The Dark Lord is no longer discorporated. Their loyalties are no longer just to themselves or their parents. This is something that was decided before they were even born. In public, Pansy has made snotty comments about Cho Chang and Cedric Diggory, has hidden the new panicked uncertainty fluttering like a trapped moth in the base of her throat under her usual aloof, bitchy mask.

“It’ll be weird meeting the all-powerful wizard I drooled over when I was a baby,” Pansy says. Her stomach cramps again.

“Eh,” Draco replies. “I’d forgotten that story. Pansy Marigold Consuelo Parkinson, menace from day one.”

“Wanker,” Pansy says without heat.

They eat their way through most of the rest of the chocolate bar in silence and then out of nowhere, Draco blurts: “Pansy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

Pansy breathes in, breathes out. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

**August 1997 / 17 years old**

Pansy wakes up from a nightmare at about five in the morning to find Draco also awake, staring at the ceiling. He’s breathing too steadily, like he’s trying to calm himself down, and she reaches for his hand. His fingers close around hers, tight and painful.

“Don’t let go,” he says, voice hitching on a sob.

“I won’t,” she says, rolling onto her side and looking at him across the bed.

This is her inheritance; a handful of mossy secrets, whatever’s left after the war, a pair of grey eyes finding hers in the dark. This is her inheritance and no matter what happens she’ll carry it with her for the rest of her days.

**April 1998 / 18 years old**

“I just don’t know what to do,” Pansy says. “They’re all expecting things of me – the Malfoys, my parents, the Dark Lord, society – and I just…”

“Then fuck them,” Ophelia says, with startling ferocity. “Fuck them. Don’t settle for anything you haven’t chosen.”

“I _can’t,_ ” Pansy says. “I just…it’s not the way the world works.”

“It _is_ the way the world works,” Ophelia insists. “Look at me. I’m what you call a Squib.”

“You…” Pansy starts, but Ophelia barrels on.

“My inheritance would have had me mouldering away in this house forever – unmarriageable, not magic enough for my saintly brother, too headstrong, too religious. I _chose_ my own story instead. That’s the thing about an inheritance. It’s only a ball and chain if you let it be a ball and chain. You don’t have to drag it around with you forever. You can make it what you want, if only you’re brave enough to _choose._ ”

“Gryffindors are brave.”

“ _Everyone_ is brave.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not,” Ophelia says, suddenly sad. The painted rings on her fingers glint. “One day you’ll see it. I just hope it’s not too late.”

**October 1998 / 18 years old**

Pansy sits in her father’s big desk chair in her green wrap, running a hand absently over her head. She’d left Astoria asleep upstairs in her bed and come down here for some Merlin-forsaken reason instead of staying bundled up and cosy with the rain knocking on the window. They’d been up until about three in the morning chatting after sex, and Pansy has never felt so settled, so _listened_ to. Astoria has a way of listening with her whole face, of being totally absorbed in whatever you’re saying. It’s incredibly attractive. It’s incredibly weird. Pansy has always wanted to be _seen,_ to be _heard,_ and here it is – with the written-off little sister of her rival who matches Pansy’s wit and knows all the people Pansy talks about and fought her way through the war too. It’s beyond belief.

“Mrs Parkinson is requesting the floo,” a portrait to the side of the desk announces all of a sudden and Pansy starts sharply, glances at it. It’s scratching behind its ear, nonchalant.

“For me?”

“Yes, Miss Pansy.”

What on earth could her mother want after two years of perfunctory Christmas presents and pocket money, after two years of silence?

“Let her through,” Pansy says, and slips off the chair to sit in front of the fireplace. She knows she looks utterly debauched – eyeliner smudged halfway down her face, hickeys all over her neck, wrap half open – but decides not to care. It’s not as if her mother has any right to complain after all this. The fire fizzes green and her mother’s perfectly coiffed head appears as though it’s not six am in Caracas right now.

“What do you want?” Pansy asks, trying to keep her tone level.

Her mother’s eyes have widened. “What have you done with your beautiful _hair_?”

“Why do you care? You never cared before.”

“Pansy…” her mother starts, and that’s it, that’s the guilt trip voice that Pansy’s all too familiar with. If it wasn’t being ignored it was this.

“No. Mother, don’t you fucking dare.”

“You don’t get to speak to me like that, young lady.”

“ _You_ shouldn’t have left me to survive a war on my own.”

Her mother pulls a face and Pansy fights to keep control of her temper.

“Why are you calling?”

“We were thinking of selling Avebury Hall to fund the move. I thought you should have a say.”

“The move?” Pansy’s heart has leapt with sudden, childish longing. “You’re coming back?”

Her mother laughs, but there’s nothing humorous about it. “No, darling. Well, your father is, but that’s just to St Mungos. Gaius and I are moving to New York with the boys. Your grandparents are getting stifling again and England’s still far too dangerous. We thought a fresh start would be best.”

“What the _fuck_?” Pansy says. Something is roaring in her ears. She feels like someone has lit her on fire.

“Surely you understand.”

“No! No I don’t! You’re running away again!”

“I have to make the best decisions for your brothers.”

“No, you have to make the best decisions for you. You don’t care about them. You’re horrible and selfish and you’ve never cared for anything but your own comfort!”

“Pansy!”

It feels like a flood, unstoppable. Pansy doesn’t think anything could stop her, not now. “You keep abandoning me! You never once asked me what I was going through! They had me torture kids! Draco was tortured, Draco’s in prison now for things I’m sure he didn’t do. All I had was Narcissa Malfoy which wasn’t much and anyway, she’s dead now, and a fucking portrait I found when I was eight. Ophelia is _painted_ and she’s been a better mother to me than you ever were!”

Her mother’s eyes are narrowed. “I never wanted children. I never wanted to marry your father…”

“And how is that my fault?”

“You always seemed happy.”

“Appearances are never what they seem,” Pansy eyes the vase on the desk, wishes she could hurl it through the fire at her mother’s head. “Sell Avebury. It’s not like I care.”

“We’ll put the townhouse into your name.”

“Whatever, Mother.”

“Pansy,” her mother pouts, just a little, and Pansy can’t decide if she wants to keep screaming or laugh. “You’re welcome to visit us in New York when you’ve decided to behave like an adult.”

“I won’t,” Pansy says. “You can rot over there for all I care.”

“My offer will stand. Think about it when you’ve calmed down,” her mother says, and then with a fizzle, the fireplace empties. Pansy is on her feet before she knows what she’s doing, kicks over the chair onto the parquet floor, grabs her wand and smashes the desk with a well-placed Reducto. Her heart is galloping and she thinks she might be sick with fury. How dare she? How dare she swan back in as though she has any say in Pansy’s life at all, as if she’s ever given a fuck?

Pansy destroys a few more priceless heirlooms and then stops, panting. On the destroyed desk, last week’s daily Prophet has crumpled open to the advertisements page and it’s then that she sees it, smeared in black ink across a whole side of newsprint.

AUROR APPLICATIONS OPEN.

She stares at it, bends her head to the list of qualifications. Five NEWTS of Exceeds Expectations or above, or one year fighting. She has the former, probably the latter too. She could do it. She could sign up for the Aurors, train, get her robes and go to New York and show her mother just what she’s made of. Her mother would be so embarrassed – a daughter with a career instead of a husband, a daughter committed to tearing down everything her mother contributed to building. What better way to cause her pain?

“Hey,” a sleepy voice says behind her, and she turns to see Astoria in the doorway, wrapped up in Pansy’s spare robe, peach silk and roses. She looks like a daydream come to life. “Are you alright? I heard the dulcet tones of rampant destruction.”

“I’m good,” Pansy says, picking her way across the rubble of her father’s old office, and kissing Astoria fiercely, wrapping her fingers into Astoria’s hair and pulling her close. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Astoria says against her mouth. “Do you have any coffee around here?”

“I’m sure I could rustle some up,” Pansy says and takes her hand. “Come on. Let’s find breakfast. I think I have croissants too.”

“You’re the best,” Astoria says, and then yawns, jaw-crackingly wide.

They go down the stairs into the basement kitchen where house-elves used to run the household, and Pansy makes a pot of coffee, digs pastries out of the cupboard and brings them over to where Astoria has settled onto the countertop, hops up to join her.

“Mother’s selling Avebury Hall,” Pansy says between bites.

“Quel scandale.”

“I know. Continuing her trend of pissing everyone off. But apparently she’s giving this to me.” Pansy spreads her hands. “I’m going to renovate it, though, the décor is ghastly. My parents really have no taste.”

“It is rather obdurately nineteenth century,” Astoria says, and then uncurls a hand from where she’s possessively clutching her coffee to touch Pansy’s scalp. “You don’t quite fit in anymore. What are you doing to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Something glamorous. Something that makes people’s jaws drop.”

“You should make every room something unexpected. A dark glamour drawing room and then sunflowers everywhere in the kitchen.” Astoria hums. “Maybe research your heritage too. That would look lovely, and it would be fun to find out about.”

“Maybe you could daydream me some ideas when you’re bored in class.”

“You want my help?”

Pansy shrugs, tries not to show how her heart is racing. It all feels so right to be sitting here on a wooden counter eating croissants with Astoria and talking about interior decoration. It feels comfortable, like the kind of old cardigan she’s seen other girls wear and never owned herself. “If you want to. I’d rather like to continue this.”

“This being…”

“Us. If you want.”

Astoria puts down her coffee, and when she lifts her head she is beaming. It’s like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm, all at once. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe you’ve been under my nose for seven years. I can’t believe I noticed your _sister_ and not you.”

“You noticed Daphne?”

“Humiliatingly, I did think about kissing her a few times. I am very glad I didn’t.”

Astoria buries her face in her hands. “You are…that is hilarious. No offence.”

“None taken.”

“What a weird tangle we’ve all ended up in.”

“It is all rather incestuous, isn’t it?” Pansy shrugs, loves the fact that no-one is going to call her out on it. “I think we got the best end of the deal.”

“I mean, yes.” Astoria smiles.

“So you’ll stay?”

Astoria kisses her in lieu of an answer, then pulls away. “I do have to go back to Hogwarts to finish my NEWTs. Classes start on Monday.”

“I suppose that’s allowable. You’ll just have to come and visit your sexy Auror girlfriend whenever you get the chance.”

“Auror?”

“I’m going to sign up.”

“That is _fantastic._ I’ve always wanted a badass girlfriend. And I think you’d be really good at it. You were always sneaking around last year and you never got caught.”

“Well, that’s settled. Do you need to go back to your parents’ place today for anything?”

“No, not really.” Astoria grins. “They’ll be terribly angry with me. But that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”

“I can Apparate you back to school.”

“My heroine. I’d like that. All the more time here.”

Pansy scoots closer. “And what a shame that is.”

*

The time spurts forward after that. She leaves Astoria with a kiss at the gates of a still crumpled-looking Hogwarts, ignoring the lurch in her heart, and sends her application off at the Hogsmeade post office. Several weeks later – after two terrifying interviews, security vetting, and a series of aptitude tests – she is the owner of several sets of bright red trainee robes that complement her black velvet coat perfectly. She puts them both on, puts on her red lipstick, and Apparates to Avebury Hall to meet the new buyers her mother has lined up, a new-money couple from Dubai who appear utterly enchanted with the place.

“There are lots of secrets to discover,” she tells their little daughter. “Make sure you find them all, ok?”

When she’s seen them off with lots of well-wishes, she climbs the stairs to the attic, easing open the door and stepping inside, ducking under the dusty beams and heading to where she propped Ophelia all those years ago. Ophelia’s eyes snap open as she approaches and they look at each other for long minutes.

“It’s been a while,” Pansy says.

“Six months,” Ophelia responds. “You look different. Good different. What happened?”

“I’m officially in training to be an Auror. A dark wizard catcher. I start on Wednesday.”

“ _Pansy,_ ” Ophelia says, and it’s so full of pride Pansy has to swallow the lump in her throat.

“I also got a girlfriend. She’s a sneaky, sarcastic little shit - you’ll like her.”

“I get to meet her?”

“Yeah, when she’s home from school,” Pansy says, and then bends to pick up Ophelia’s portrait. “I’m all set up in the townhouse in London. This place is going to someone new.”

“And I’m, you’re…”

“What?” Pansy says. “Did you think I’d leave you here to gather dust?”

Ophelia stares at her, and Pansy doesn’t think she’s imagining the painted tears welling up in Ophelia’s eyes. “You’re serious?”

“Of course I am. You’ve been neglected for far too long.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything.” Pansy smiles at her, bright and wide. “Remember that thing you said to me, when I first found you?”

“About unexpected, life-saving things?”

“Yes. That’s you for me. You saved my life. I just didn’t realise it until now.”

“And what a life you’re going to have,” Ophelia murmurs. “My darling girl. I’m so happy.”

“Me too,” Pansy says, and tucks Ophelia under one arm. “Come on. Let me take you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspirations! Pureblood culture was based on both the 19th century and also Colubrina's excellent worldbuilding in The Green Girl (especially the thing about bracelets). The whole plotline about the fake Cruciatus curse comes from a now unavailable fic I read years ago called True Colours by TwiLyght Sans Sparkles in which Astoria comes up with the same idea, teaches Draco, and they both join the DA. The lockpick stuff is because I read Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo recently (READ IT), and the Pledging idea comes from RF Kuang's The Poppy War, which I am yet to read properly but my brother likes it and her twitter feed is amazing.
> 
> If you want to scream with me on Tumblr, I hang out at: @if-fortunate


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